Tenacity
by Sweet Christabel
Summary: Chell is an ordinary young woman thrown into an extraordinary situation. To gain her freedom, she must fight her way through Aperture Science for a second time. The only allies she has are a moron who betrays her, her greatest enemy trapped inside a potato, and a mysterious man who paints on the walls. Eventual ChellxDoug Want to skip to the AU? Read chapter 3, then jump to 8 :)
1. Rude Awakening

**Disclaimer: **Portal and its characters belongs to Valve. Which is a shame, because I'd quite like a Wheatley. Not that I'd trust him, but he'd make an excellent alarm clock.

**Author's Note: **This initially came about because I wanted to know what was going through Chell's head during Portal 2. Then the AU/continuation part of it grew and grew until I had to include it. This story refers to events that happened in the Lab Rat comic. If you haven't read it, I definitely recommend it :)

Want to skip the retelling? Read chapter three, then jump to chapter eight :)

Quick note about my characterisation of Chell. I really liked the idea of her being quite articulate even though she chooses not to talk. Also, I've read a few characterisations of her where she's portrayed as a kind of tough Amazonian superwoman. I wanted to steer clear of that. Yes, she's tough, but I wanted her to be someone who isn't aware of how good she is. She's vulnerable, she gets hurt, she gets depressed, she wants to give up, but she _doesn't_. That was what was most interesting for me :)

By the way, I'm sorry for how monstrously huge this first chapter is! It just didn't seem right to cut it any sooner.

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**Chapter One – Rude Awakening.**

Confusion is the first thing I experience when I wake. I don't know how long I've slept, what finally woke me, or where I am. My eyes open and my mind immediately overflows with questions. One thing I do know, one thing that remains firmly established: I am alone. I am _always_ alone.

I shift my stiff, aching limbs out of bed and stand up. My movements are wobbly, uncoordinated. It's frustrating, and not like me at all. I try some simple exercises, jumping up and down, stretching, and I feel the stiffness start to ease. It should get better with further use.

The cracked, distorted voice that floats impersonally out of the speakers in the ceiling is familiar and disturbing. It is a voice that belongs to one place only, and it dawns on me with sluggish, cold horror that I'm still here. I never escaped. This realisation affects my entire body. My posture grows tense, my fists clench, nails digging into my palms, a droplet of cold sweat rolls between my shoulder blades, and my throat tightens. It's hard to breathe, and I have to force myself to calm down. Panicking will not help me, and in fact might speed up my imminent death. There's always something trying to kill me in this place.

I'm beginning to remember waking up here before. Looking around the room, I can tell that considerable time has passed since I last saw it. Where before it was sterile, trying very hard to be pleasant, it is now dilapidated, filled with mould and a stench of decay. The monitor barely works, and the furniture is ruined. The air conditioning has also shut down. The room is stifling. I unzip my orange jumpsuit, which, judging by the smell, I've been wearing for some time, and tie the arms around my waist. Underneath I'm wearing a white vest, on which the Aperture logo is proudly stamped. I pick at it with a fingernail. It would come off eventually, but I have bigger things to worry about, and must leave it alone, even though the sight of it makes me want to run a mile. My feet are bare, my tanned legs scarred and scraped from my time in the test chambers. I examine the marks at the back of my calves where my implants had been. I don't remember them being removed. As uncomfortable as they had been, they had allowed me to jump further and fall greater heights than I was capable of on my own.

The voice from the speakers declares that I've been in suspension for 9999999...actually, I lost count of how many 9s. Too many days to count. I don't know if the A.I. that powers the announcer is damaged, or if my time in suspension has somehow maxed out the day-counter. I literally have no idea how long I've been asleep. It's jarring to have this happen again. My body has left a considerable dent in the mattress. This and the overall state of the room indicates that it's been years, maybe even decades. I glance down at my hands, my legs, every piece of exposed skin. I haven't aged. Judging by the unhealed scrapes on my knuckles, I haven't even aged a day. Just like before. And once again, I have no time to wonder how this is possible. The sense of disorientation is palpable, but I have no time for it. I need to get out of here.

The fog is gradually lifting from my sleep-drugged mind, and I notice another voice. This one is coming from the door. I glance in its direction, wide-eyed. It sounds human! A real, live human! It's been too long since I heard another person speak. Every voice in this place is in some way processed, robotic and unfriendly. I dart towards the door and wrench it open.

"Agggh! Oh God."

There's no man outside. Instead, a grey metal ball stares at me with a vibrant blue optic. I stare back. Words die in my throat.

"You look terri...um...good. Looking good, actually."

He's not human. Not even human-shaped. Yet, if I closed my eyes I could almost imagine that he is real.

"Are you okay?" he asks, moving further into the room. "Are you- don't answer that. I'm absolutely sure you're fine. There's plenty of time for you to recover. Just take it slow."

He seems to be attached to some kind of rail in the ceiling, able to move forward or back, and nowhere else. I unconsciously back away from him until my legs connect with the bed. He looks a little like one of the personality cores I removed from _her_, only they didn't seem to have so much...well, personality. He babbles like a real person with a bad case of nerves.

"Please prepare for emergency evacuation," the announcer declares calmly.

I glance quickly at the monitor, feeling the first stirring of concern in my gut. The screen is still frozen unhelpfully.

"Stay calm! Stay calm!" the core exclaims, his optic narrowing in what looks suspiciously like panic. "Prepare, that's all they're saying: prepare. It's all fine, all right? Don't move. I'm going to get us out of here."

Moving isn't something my limbs seem keen on doing any time soon. It seems I was awoken to comply with the evacuation order. So nice that Aperture is so caring towards its test subjects.

"Oh," he adds, vanishing through a hatch in the ceiling. "You might want to hold on to something. Word of advice. Up to you."

I frown. Why does he want me to hold on to something? The room gives an impolite lurch, sending me sprawling backwards on the mattress. I roll and cling on to the bed frame, hiding my face in the sheets as bits of old, crumbled ceiling tile rain down on top of me.

"You all right down there?" the core yells. "Can you hear me? Hello?"

I can't answer him. The noise is too much, and I'm not sure I want to anyway.

Then, suddenly, the shuddering stops, and the core reappears. His tone is calm and almost friendly, the British accent very different to the cores I've come across in the past. On a whim I decide to refer to him as Pendleton. He seems like a Pendleton. He hasn't told me if he has a name, and I'm not about to ask. As pleasant as he seems to be, he's still an Aperture creation, and I refuse to utter one word to anything in this place.

"Most test subjects do experience some cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension," he says conversationally. "Now, you've been under for...QUITE a lot longer, and it's not out of the question that you may have a veeerrrry minor case of serious brain damage."

I blink, taken aback by the speech that seems to be equal parts brutal honesty and softening the blow.

"But don't be alarmed, all right? Although, if you do - if you do feel alarm, try to hold on to that feeling. Because that is the proper reaction to being told that you've got brain damage."

I glance at him in mild exasperation, getting to my feet. There's a bizarre kind of logic to his words, but I don't have brain damage. I'm not sure how that's possible, if what he says is true, but I'm pretty sure that I don't.

"Do you understand what I'm saying at all?" he asks patronisingly. "Is any of this making any sense? Just tell me, just say 'yes'."

I stare at him for a moment. The expression on my face should tell him what he needs to know. I turn away to continue shaking the stiffness out of my limbs. I get the feeling that I'm going to be on the move fairly soon.

"Okay," he interrupts, "what you're doing there is jumping. Um...you just...you just jumped."

I roll my eyes at the wall. He's so literal!

"But never mind, say 'apple'. 'Apple'."

I spin to face him again, one eyebrow raised. I have absolutely no intention of saying 'apple'. I hope he doesn't plan on spending long on these little games if we're supposed to be escaping.

"Simple word: 'apple'...Just say 'apple'. Classic. Very simple...A-Double P-L-E."

I bite my lip to keep from smiling at the earnest, helpful spelling. I should be irritated that he genuinely thinks I've got brain damage, but I can't help but be amused, despite the situation.

"Just say 'apple'. Easy word, isn't it? 'Apple'...How would you use it in a sentence? 'Mmm, this apple's crunchy', you might say. And I'm not even asking you for the whole sentence, just the word 'apple'."

A persistent alarm begins to wail, startling us both.

"Okay, you know what? That's close enough. Just hold tight."

He disappears through the ceiling hatch again.

The speakers sputter to life with the same calm and falsely cheerful announcer. "All reactor core safeguards are now non-functional. Please prepare for reactor core meltdown."

"You've got to be kidding me," I mutter under my breath.

There's one thing I've always been certain of: I don't want to die, and I especially don't want to die _here_. But if the announcement is accurate it looks likely that I will. The irony is, of course, that if I hadn't shut her down GLaDOS would have been able to fix this.

The room begins to shake again. As I'm thrown against the wall like a rag doll, I wonder what the hell Pendleton's doing up there. I brace myself, once again hanging on to the bed, which seems to be bolted to the floor.

"Okay, look," he shouts down, "I wasn't going to mention this to you, but I'm in pretty hot water here."

The worse the shuddering gets, the more the room falls apart. Wall panels, ceiling tiles, and, alarmingly, one or two floor panels, fall away, revealing a glimpse of the outside. Somehow, my room is being moved. The area beyond is vast and industrial. We're a very, very long way up, and I eye the now flimsy-looking floor with concern.

"How you doing down there? You still holding on?"

'With white knuckles,' I think to myself.

"The reserve power ran out," he explains over the noise of falling debris, "so of course the whole relaxation centre stops waking up the bloody test subjects."

I'd always assumed I wasn't the only test subject here, but to know that there are other people, real people, so close by is overwhelming. And now Pendleton is moving me further away from them all! I open my mouth to voice this. It will mean breaking my own vow, but I figure this is worth it.

"Hold on! This is a bit tricky!" he prattles on, unable to hear me.

The room scrapes cringe-worthily along the side of one of the other structures, and more panels tumble off. The entire far side of the room is now nothing but metal girders, and I back further into the corner, clinging on to the walls of the bare alcove that was once a small cupboard.

"And of course nobody tells ME anything. Noooo, why should they tell me anything? Why should I be kept informed, you know, about the life functions of the ten thousand bloody test subjects I'm supposed to be in charge of?"

My heart skips a beat. Ten thousand?

"Aggh, it's close. Can you see? Am I going to make it through? Have I got enough space?"

I glance ahead at the gap he's referring to. There seem to be other rooms like mine, stacked on top of each other like a child's building blocks. There is a space there, but it barely looks big enough.

"Aggh. Just...I just gotta get it through here. Right, I just gotta concentrate."

We almost get stuck trying to get through, and he changes his mind, taking us sideways. More ceiling tiles collapse, and daylight hits my eyes, teasing me through huge holes high up in the roof. This might well be the closest to the surface I've ever been in all my time here. The thought makes me giddy with longing.

"And whose fault do you think it's gonna be when the management comes down here and finds ten thousand flipping vegetables?"

The room tilts alarmingly as we collide with something, and I wedge myself more firmly into the empty cupboard.

"Aggh! See, I hit that one, I hit that one!"

We're moving a little more steadily at last, and I blow loose strands of hair out of my face.

"Okay, listen," Pendleton goes on, "we should get our story straight, all right? If anyone asks - and no one's going to ask, don't worry - but if anyone asks, tell them as far as you know, the last time you checked, everyone looked pretty much alive. All right? Not dead."

My mind reels and I feel a queasiness that has nothing to do with the swaying box I'm riding in. Ten thousand dead test subjects? How did I survive if nobody else did? I wonder if it's true, but I figure that Pendleton should know. He's in charge of them after all. If I had the luxury of being upset by this, I would be. But I have to put it aside and think of myself. Nobody else is going to.

"Okay, almost there! On the other side of that wall is one of the old testing tracks. There's a piece of equipment in there that we're gonna need to get out of here."

He must mean the portal gun. As loath as I am to ever set eyes on it again, I can't help but feel he's right. It will come in handy for bypassing difficult areas.

"I...I think this is a docking station. Get ready!"

The room surges forward, only to crash into the wall. As several pieces of masonry fall off it, I notice that the wall is helpfully signposted, telling us that the docking station is below us. 500 feet below us.

"Good news. That is NOT a docking station. So there's one mystery solved. Uh...I'm going to attempt a manual override on this wall. Could get a bit technical. Hold on!"

I tighten my grip on the wall, wondering what a manual override involves. It becomes very apparent very quickly that manual override is Pendleton-speak for 'smash into it repeatedly'.

"Almost there! Remember, you're looking for a gun that makes holes. Not bullet holes, but...don't worry, you'll figure it out. Seriously do hold on this time."

The wall gives, filling the room with brick dust. I cough, taking a few seconds to realise that everything is finally still and we made it. Pendleton reappears out of the ceiling hatch, and I release my death-grip and emerge from the empty cupboard.

"Whew! There we go," he says, as if he hasn't just dragged us across the entire relaxation centre and informed me that my fellow test subjects are all dead. "Now, I'll be honest, you are probably in no fit state to run this particular type of cognitive gauntlet. But...um...at least you're a good jumper. So...you've got that, you've got jumping on your side. Just do your best and I'll meet you up ahead."

I venture out of my corner and take a proper look at my exit out of the room. The hole in the wall is generous, but I don't like the look of the sharp pieces of metal and stone sticking up everywhere. Below me is a glass suspension chamber, much like the one I woke up in on my first introduction to the test chambers. The only way down is through the ceiling.

"All right, off you go!" Pendleton chirps. "Go on. Just...march on through that hole."

I ignore him. I'm aware of the imminent danger, but there's no way I can make it to the surface with my feet cut to ribbons. I head back into the room, to the closed door in the short corridor to the main door. On the off-chance that there's something helpful, it'll probably be in there.

"I know, I have painted quite a grim picture of your chances, but if you simply stand here we will both surely die."

I shoot him a dirty look for good measure before wrenching open the door. It's a bathroom, or had been. It's just as decayed as the rest of the room, and now covered in masonry. The shower and toilet have been half ripped out, dangling outside the room on a few scarce plumbing pipes. There's another cupboard on the far wall, and I take a look inside it. There's a neat stack of orange jumpsuits, a few vests hanging up, and a pair of white boots. I smile to myself. I have no time to change my horrible old jumpsuit, so I ignore the fresh ones and reach for the boots. They're of an unusual design, incorporating the curved braces that I'd worn as implants before. I strap them in place, adjust the fit, and take a few experimental, teetering steps. They'll take some getting used to, but they're better than nothing. They might even be useful.

"Your destination's probably not going to come and meet us here," Pendleton says as I exit the bathroom. "Is it? So, go on!"

I think he's trying to be encouraging, but he can't quite hide the snarky tone behind it.

"That's the spirit!" he exclaims as I step through the wall.

I send him a small smile. He did get me out of the relaxation centre, after all. I step onto the glass ceiling and promptly fall through it. The shards make tiny cuts up my calves and arms. The glass crunches under my boots, which absorb the shock of the landing.

"Good luck!" I hear from above.

The announcer's voice bursts cheerfully out of the speakers. "Hello, and again welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control."

Knowing Aperture, this is probably bluster and exaggeration. But a tiny part of me is terrified of what I might find when I reach the surface. The clock above me is frozen at 12:00. There are a hundred reasons for why that might be, but it doesn't bode well, and seems to emphasise the way time feels like it has no hold on this place. I realise this is slightly ironic, considering that the trailing vines and crumbling debris indicate that the centre _is_ feeling the effects of the passage of time, but as a test subject running chamber after chamber, time stretches on forever.

"However," the announcer goes on, "thanks to Emergency Testing Protocols, testing can continue. These pre-recorded messages will provide instructional and motivational support so that science can still be done, even in the event of environmental, social, economic, or structural collapse."

Aperture, of course, has its own view on what the top priorities are in 'potentially apocalyptic' circumstances. Needless to say, they don't match up to what anyone else's top priorities would be.

"The portal will open and emergency testing will begin in three, two, one."

With a familiar dull pop, the portal springs to life on the room's sole patch of wall. I duck through it, emerging in the outer chamber that the glass suspension cell is contained in. I briefly catch sight of myself as I pass through. I look paler than I'm used to, and I wonder how long it's been since my skin saw the sun.

The first test chamber is gloomy and bleak. Not just because I've lost the light seeping in from the relaxation centre. The very feeling of being back on a testing track again is oppressive to say the least. A weighted storage cube drops into the room with a thunk.

"Cube-and-button-based testing remains an important tool for science," the announcer assures me, "even in a dire emergency."

I sincerely doubt the truth of this statement, but obediently place the cube on the button.

"If cube-and-button-based testing caused this emergency, don't worry. The odds of this happening twice are very slim."

I gather that I'm meant to feel reassured by that, but all I can think about is how completely absurd it all is. It's a mystery to me how Aperture was ever taken seriously as a science lab.

When I enter the next chamber, the sense of déjà vu is strong, and I begin to realise that this is the exact same test track I ran before. It's altered dramatically, but still recognisable under the layers of grime and dilapidation.

The first time I travelled through these chambers, I was enjoying myself. I let out a small, humourless chuckle at this memory. It seems completely alien now. Back then I didn't know what this place was really like. Everything was happening as I'd been assured it would, I didn't think that the voice I was hearing over the speakers was anything other than a series of pre-recorded messages. But then I began to notice things that weren't right. The tests became more and more dangerous, the absence of scientists in the observation rooms began to seem sinister rather than a simple oversight, and the robotic voice, who I soon discovered was an A.I. known as GLaDOS, began to make remarks that seemed more specifically directed at me. I found scribbles on the walls warning me about her, telling me where to place portals to avoid being hit by remote rockets. By the time she tried to send me into a fire pit, my guard was already well and truly up. It was at that point that it became crystal clear that she was sentient, and the graffiti had been right.

I escaped to the area 'backstage' of the test chambers, figuring that would lead to a way out, or to a scientist who could shut GLaDOS down. It was immediately evident that there had been no human activity there for a good few years. This was a huge shock to me, on top of having a science-mad A.I. attempt to kill me. When I'd been put in suspension prior to my first test, the facility had been abuzz with staff and visitors enjoying Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. I'd come along to volunteer to test the portal device my mother had been so proud of working on, in addition to helping with the young children.

My mom always told me stories about her day at work: things her colleagues had said, ideas they were developing. In hindsight, she was probably breaking some kind of confidentiality clause every time she opened her mouth, but she knew I'd be discreet, and I was always proud to be trusted. Those stories saw me through high school, university, and the first few months of my post-graduation job. Dad and I lived and breathed the portal device along with Mom. I couldn't wait to get my own hands on it. Ironic, really.

"Hey, hey!" calls Pendleton, startling me out of my reminiscing. "You made it!"

I can't help but smile at him. His genuinely cheerful tone is so nice to hear.

"There should be a portal device on that podium over there. I can't see it though. Maybe it fell off."

I turn to see. The podium is sticking up out of a collection of broken tiles, gently sparking as it tries to rotate. The portal gun is nowhere to be seen. As I step closer, the floor gives way and I find myself falling.

"Whoa!" Pendleton exclaims.

I land not too far down in ankle-deep, filthy water. I can feel a coating of slime on the bottom of the pool, and I wrinkle my nose in disgust.

"Hello?" his voice floats down to me.

I glance up. I'm only a few floors below where I was. It shouldn't be too hard to find an alternative route back.

"Can you see the portal gun? Also, are you alive? That's important, should have asked that first. I'm...do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to work on the assumption that you're still alive and I'm just going to wait for you up ahead. I'll wait - I'll wait one hour. Then I'll come back and, assuming I can locate your dead body, I'll bury you. All right? Brilliant. Go team! See you in an hour. Hopefully. If you're not...dead."

Silence falls, and I take a look around me. I make my way towards the only patch of light I can see. The portal gun is there, having landed on top of some malfunctioning floor panels, but it's not what holds my attention in this area. There are paintings here. More graffiti. Most of them are quite disturbing, images of what I assume to be the time when GLaDOS took over and killed everyone with neurotoxin. Although the drawings are crude, one of the screaming faces looks like my mom, and I have to turn away. After piecing together information about what happened when they activated GLaDOS, I'm pretty certain that my mom died with everyone else. And Dad...he's probably dead now too, if as much time has passed as I suspect. I wonder if he ever found out what happened to Mom and me. I'm trying so hard not to cry, my throat hurts.

On the other side of the room there's a picture of GLaDOS offering cake to a female test subject. When I see the next painting, I realise that it's meant to be me. There's a drawing of a stick figure person holding up the portal gun, while GLaDOS disintegrates in the background and I float ambiguously on top of it all. The next painting is a portrait of me, lying in suspension and looking unnaturally serene. Unlike the other stylised images, this one actually looks like me. It's a tribute, almost a...shrine.

The painting blurs as my eyes fill with tears. All this time I'd assumed that the graffiti I'd seen in the test chambers had been put there to help any test subject who might need it. Now it seems that it was there to help me. This person, whoever they are, knows me...knew me. I wonder for a brief, hopeful moment if it's Mom. But then I dismiss that thought. If it was Mom, she wouldn't have hidden in the shadows. And that drawing on the other wall really looks like her...

I brush my fingers over the paint. I want, more than I've ever wanted anything in the world, I want this person to still be alive. Because then I would know that I had a real friend. Or an ally at least.

I allow myself a moment to cry for this person, probably long dead. I would never have survived if not for them. But then I straighten up, pull myself together, and do what I always do: carry on.

With greater resolve, I climb up to the portal gun and pick it up. I notice that it's only the model that shoots single portals. That's not ideal, but it will be more help than no gun at all. Its weight feels familiar in my hands, almost comforting. The orange portal has managed to come to life on the far wall, which is useful. I shoot a blue portal into the artwork and continue on my way.

I move quickly through what was once part of the observation offices. They look abandoned in a way that the rest of the facility does not, despite its state. Papers and mugs on the floor, desk chairs tipped over give the impression of rooms that were vacated in a hurry. I can easily imagine the desperation of scientists trying to escape these offices as neurotoxin seeps through the air conditioning. Not for the first time, I wonder where the bodies are. I've never come across one in all my time here, a fact which I'm both grateful for and confused by.

A jump through a broken observation window puts me back on the testing tracks, and I continue to solve the puzzles as best I can. After being reassured that smooth jazz would help me complete the test, told to disregard undeserved compliments, and warned against falling space debris, I make it to the chamber where Pendleton is waiting.

"Hey!" he greets. "Oi, oi! I'm up here!"

He's hovering above a huge partition of fallen debris that I think used to be a supporting wall. A slab of stone with a closed orange portal sits nearby. I'm pleased to see it, because I don't feel like clambering over the rubble to get to the room beyond. That's the drawback with portal technology: it makes you lazier.

"Oh brilliant, you _did _find a portal gun! Oh, d'you know what? It just goes to show, people with brain damage are the real heroes in the end, aren't they? At the end of the day. Brave."

I huff slightly, but my annoyance isn't pressing. He can believe what he wants, it makes no difference to me.

"Pop a portal on that wall behind me there, and I'll meet you on the other side of the room."

I do as he suggests, dropping down from the portal as he spins around to face me.

"Okay, listen. Let me lay something on you here, it's pretty heavy. They told me never, never, _ever_ to disengage myself from my Management Rail or I would DIE." His optic widens in a comical imitation of alarm. I'm pretty sure he's not trying to be funny though, so I keep my expression placid. "But we're out of options here. So...get ready to catch me, all right? On the off chance that I'm not dead the moment I pop off this thing."

I glance up. Sure enough, he's run out of rail to trundle along. The damage to this room has snapped it in two. I study him, trying to work out how much he weighs, bringing to mind the cores I took from GLaDOS. Warily I put the portal gun down and position myself beneath the rail.

"On three. Ready? One...Two...Three!"

On three, instead of dropping as I expected, he launches himself several feet backwards. He moves side to side, shaking his head, as it were.

"That's high," he states emphatically. "It's too high, isn't it, really, that..."

I sigh and bend my fingers, waving him forward. Obediently, he moves up to the break in the rail.

"All right, going on three just gives you too much time to think about it. Let's, uh, go on one this time. Okay, ready?"

I nod.

"One!" He drops like a stone. "Catch-me-catch-me-catch-me-catch-me!"

He's heavier than I anticipated, and he slips out of my arms, bouncing once and rolling to a stop.

"Ow," he grunts. "Ow."

I wonder how much he's actually capable of feeling.

"I...Am. Not. Dead! I'm not dead!" he laughs.

I give a silent giggle myself, because laughter wasn't what I expected and it's a little infectious. The melancholy I felt looking at the paintings eases a little, and I'm grateful for it.

"I can't move though, that's the problem now."

I retrieve the portal device and pick him up with it. As with the cubes in the tests, it holds him in a kind of magnetic field.

"Plug me into that stick on the wall over there. Yeah? And I'll show you something. You'll be impressed by this."

I plug him in, hoping that what he wants to show me is a way out of this room.

"Ummmmm, yeah, I can't do it if you're watching."

He actually sounds embarrassed. As loath as I am to praise anything created in this place, I have to admit his A.I. technology is amazing.

"Seriously," he goes on, "I'm not joking. Could you just turn around for a second?"

His optic spins, a helpful gesture for if I get confused about what turning around means. To save hassle, I do as he asks.

There are a few beeps, then he says I can turn around again.

"Bam!" he states, removing himself from the plug and rolling gently to the floor. "Secret panel. That I opened. While your back was turned. Pick me up. Let's get out of here."

A large section of wall opens, revealing a metal walkway and the dark, dingy view of Aperture outside the testing tracks.

"And off we go," Pendleton says as I pick him up again.

"Look at this!" he enthuses, watching me head across the walkway and through the following door. "No rail to tell us where to go! Oh, this is brilliant! We can go wherever we want! Hold on, though, where _are_ we going? Seriously. Hang on, let me just get my bearings." He spins to face the direction I'm walking in, then quickly looks back at me. "Um...just follow the rail, actually."

We progress down a series of metal walkway corridors. There are various glass tubes lining the walls. When they're working properly, they transport things around the facility, such as weighted cubes for tests. Half of the ones I've seen today, however, seem to be clogged with junk. And then we come upon one that has a live turret inside it. The blinking red laser sight stops me in my tracks.

"Oh no," moans Pendleton, but that seems to be the extent of his concern.

"Hello?" says the turret. It doesn't sound threatening, but then they never do. "Hello?"

"Yes, hello! No, we're not stopping!" he tells it. "Don't make eye contact, whatever you do," he hisses at me.

Warily, I continue on, ready to duck at the first hint of gunfire. The turret never fires a shot.

"Excuse me? Hello?"

"No thanks, we're good! Appreciate it!"

"Thanks anyway," the turret says sadly.

"Keep moving, keep moving."

I agree with him, and keep up my brisk pace. Behind us the turret continues with its soft, "Hello?"

I've never come across a turret that doesn't shoot before. I don't know whether to be relieved or suspicious.

"I'm different!" I hear it say as we leave the area.

I'm not sure what to make of that, so I put it out of my mind and head through the door.

"Probably ought to bring you up to speed on something right now," Pendleton speaks up. "In order to escape, we're going to have to go through HER chamber."

I glance at him sharply.

"And she will probably kill us if...if she's, um, awake."

Looking around, I recognise these corridors all too well. I'm not sure how I feel about going back inside that room, even though I'm fairly positive that had GLaDOS been awake, we would have heard about it by now.

"If you want to just call it quits, we could just sit here. Forever. That's an option. Option A: sit here, do nothing. Option B: go through there, and if she's alive, she'll almost certainly kill us."

Well, I'm certainly not going to sit and do nothing. I march down the glass corridor towards her chamber. Despite my logical theory that she must still be deactivated, my heart speeds up and my mouth goes dry. I tighten my grip on the portal gun, my palms becoming clammy with sweat. I can't afford to be afraid.

As the door begins to open, Pendleton gets increasingly agitated. "Okay, I'm going to lay my cards on the table. I don't want to do it. I don't want to go in there. Don't-don't go in there! She's off. She's off! Panic over! She's off! All fine! On we go."

I pause just inside the room, gazing about me in a kind of horrified wonder. The room is a total wreck, almost unrecognisable, with gaping holes in the ceiling. I continue walking, my pace slow and unobtrusive, and I gaze down at my fallen enemy. Whatever gravity well had pulled us both to the surface after we fought, it must have dropped her eventually. She's lying in pieces on the overgrown ground, half in and out of dirty puddles, linked together by a single, snaking cable.

"There she is," says Pendleton, apparently not noticing my sombre mood. "What a nasty piece of work she was, honestly, like a proper maniac." As we get closer, he seems to pick up on my need for silence, and his voice grows quieter. "Do you know, uh, do you know who ended up taking her down in the end? You're not going to believe this: a human. I know, I know! I wouldn't have believed it either. Apparently this human escaped and, uh, nobody's seen him since."

I wonder where he got that story from.

"Then there was a sort of long chunk of time where, um, absolutely nothing happened. And then there's us escaping now. So, um, that's pretty much the whole story, you're up to speed. Don't touch anything."

That's really not an issue. I feel an overwhelming instinct not to disturb _anything _in here. I move past GLaDOS's motionless head, taking slow, deliberate steps to minimise splashing. At the end of the room, next to the incinerator, I spot a scribbled arrow on the wall, pointing me in the right direction. My mystery ally again.

I reach a set of stairs and head down them, only to find most of the steps have crumbled and fallen. It's a long way down. First real test of my new boots, I guess. Pendleton chirps up as I prepare to leap.

"Jump! Actually, looking at it, that is quite a - that's quite a distance, isn't it? Okay, you know what? Uh, go ahead and jump. You've got - you've got braces on your legs, so you're all set."

He's just beginning another speech when I jump. He yells for the entire duration of our short trip downwards. The boots don't fail me, though, and we land safely.

"Still held!" he shouts triumphantly. "Still being held! That's a great job! You've applied the grip. We're all fine. That's tremendous."

The area underneath GLaDOS's chamber is dimly lit and cold, made up entirely of metal walkways and maintenance pipes.

"Aggh!" yells Pendleton, making me jump. "I - sorry, I just looked down. I do not recommend it. Agh! I've just done it again!"

I take a look down through the grille of the walkway. I can't actually see any floor beneath us on any level. It stretches down so far, it's impossible to see the bottom. Heights don't really bother me, but this causes my stomach to flutter a little, especially considering the age of the walkway. It looks like a fall too far for these boots.

We press on, eventually reaching a tiny, tall, circular room that looks a little like an elevator shaft. There's a large console in the centre of it, and the walls are entirely covered in different coloured switches.

"This is the main breaker room," Pendleton announces importantly. "Let's go in!"

I manage to squeeze inside, even though the console doesn't leave much standing room.

"Look for a switch that says escape pod. All right? Don't touch anything else. Not interested in anything else. Don't touch anything else. Don't even look at anything else. Just - well, obviously you've got to look at everything else to find escape pod, but as soon as you've looked at something and it doesn't say escape pod, look at something else, look at the next thing. All right? But don't touch anything else or look at any - well, look at other things, but don't...you understand."

Yes, against all the odds, I do. He seems to be an expert at using twenty words where two would suffice. He's a complete polar opposite to me. Especially in this case, since I've decided to say nothing at all. It should be irritating really, but I'm still kind of grateful to be able to listen to a voice that sounds human.

"Can you see it anywhere?" he asks, and I shake my head. "I can't see it anywhere. Uh, tell you what, plug me in and I'll turn the lights on."

The console opens up and I plug him in. Immediately the room floods with light. The switches go up almost to the top, far beyond reach or sight. Even if we found the escape pod switch, I'm not sure how we'd be able to press it.

"Let there be light! That's, uh, God. I was quoting God."

The console beeps, and the whole unit, including the piece of floor I'm standing on, begins to move. Startled, I take one hand off the portal gun to hang on to the console.

"Oh, look at that!" Pendleton says brightly "It's…turning. Ominous! But probably fine. As long as it doesn't start, you know, moving up. Now...escape pod, escape pod..."

An alarm begins to buzz, and I get the familiar sinking feeling that things are about to turn sour. Perhaps the reactor core has finally given up the ghost, although I haven't heard any announcements about its status for a while. The console starts a steady ascent, flipping switches as it goes.

"It's...it's moving up!" Pendleton points out, seemingly attempting to hold his panic in check.

The hatch above us opens. We're heading back up to her chamber. My unease rises with us.

"Okay...No! Don't - don't worry, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it. This should slow it down."

The change in our speed is instantaneous.

"No, makes it go faster," he muses.

We emerge back into the light, finding ourselves almost level with GLaDOS's detached head.

"Uh oh," Pendleton says, and I wonder what he knows that I don't. I only hope and pray that it isn't-

"Power up initiated," the announcer tells us.

"Okay, don't panic!" Pendleton yells heatedly. "All right! Stop panicking! I can still stop this. Um...oh, there's a password. It's fine. I'll just hack it. Not a problem. Ummmm..."

Before my very eyes, the pieces of GLaDOS's chassis are knitting themselves back together, pulling her head away from us. I can only stare in horrified silence. I can't think. I can't move. I'm vaguely aware of Pendleton's hacking attempts, but his chatter fades to a clogging buzz in my ears.

"Power up complete."

"Act natural," he says, his words finally cutting through the fog, "we've done nothing wrong."

I'm not so sure about that. I have a horrible feeling that he's about to get punished for helping me. I open my mouth to apologise, but the words stick in my throat.

GLaDOS's head snaps up and her cold, yellow optic bores into us.

"Hello!" Pendleton shouts, injecting as much cheeriness into the word as possible.

"Oh," she says, "it's _you_."

"You know her?" Pendleton asks in wonder, and I'm not quite sure which one of us he's talking to.

"It's been a long time. How have you been? I've been really busy being dead. You know, after you _murdered me_!"

"You did what?!"

Two cables descend, their steel grips grabbing us both.

"Aaaggh!" Pendleton yells as the cable rips him away from the console. "Oh no! No, no, no, no, no!"

As I'm pulled upwards by my vest top, the portal gun slips from my grasp and vanishes down into the breaker room. She doesn't care, doesn't even seem to notice.

"Oh no, no, no!" wails Pendleton. "No! Noooo! Gah!"

"Okay, look," she says, her tone unnervingly calm. "We've both said a lot of things that you're going to regret."

Pendleton's really terrified, and I gasp in dismay as the metal grip crushes him, tossing him carelessly aside like a used tissue. I bite my tongue against the anger. If she was hoping to provoke me, that was really the worst thing she could have done. Last time I discovered that I'm more focused when I'm angry.

"But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."

As I'm lifted slowly across the chamber, she continues. "I will say, though, that since you went to all the trouble of waking me up, you must really, really love to test. I love it too. There's just one small thing we need to take care of first."

The movement stops. I have just enough time to look down and see where I am before the grip opens and I'm falling.

* * *

**A/N: **Again, sorry for the length! Future chapters will be a bit shorter. Also, this won't be a walkthrough. When things are more established, I will be skimming over large parts of the test chambers and dialogue. By the way, the parents Chell refers to here are her adopted parents.

Reviews are much appreciated :)


	2. Lab Rat

**A/N: **Thank you to my lovely reviewers :)

* * *

**Chapter Two – Lab Rat.**

The movement stops. I have just enough time to look down and see where I am before the grip opens and I'm falling.

She's dropped me into the incinerator chute. It's dark, unlike when I used it before. I gather that it's not operating at its normal capacity. I hurtle downwards at an alarming rate, trying not to hit the soot-covered walls. By pure luck I miss the metal plates smashing together, and I'm spat out into space. I see the fiery pit out of the corner of my eye before I thankfully land on a pile of broken tiles. Even with the boots, it's a jarring halt, and I balance myself with my palms before straightening up. I try to catch my breath, but the air is stiflingly hot.

"Here we are," GLaDOS says conversationally. "The Incinerator Room. Be careful not to trip over any parts of me that didn't get completely burned when you threw them down here. The dual portal device should be around here somewhere. Once you find it, we can start testing. Just like old times."

I get to the other side of the room by crossing the pit on some very precariously balanced pieces of debris. There are cubes and turrets raining down around me, tumbling into the fire. The heat is unbearable, and I'm glad to slip into a cool, dim corridor. I pause for a moment, leaning against the chilly surface of the stone walls. The ends of my hair are singed.

I head on towards the end of the corridor, very much aware that the sooner I find the device, the sooner I can start looking for an escape route. It's just going to be so much harder now she's awake. Even with the hindsight of my first escape attempt, it seems an impossible task. If I was the giving up type, now might be a good time to do it. But I'm not. I never have been.

"There it is," GLaDOS informs me. "Hold on."

The panels preventing me from reaching it stutter to life, moving out of the way. There are only a few thin strips of metal between the gun and the incinerator.

"There."

I pick it up and it fits snugly onto my arm.

"Good. You have a dual portal device. There should be a way back to the test tracks up ahead."

She keeps up a torrent of speech as I negotiate my way to the elevator, occasionally moving rubble out of my path in a way that would seem uncharacteristically helpful if she wasn't so obvious about getting me back in the test chambers.

"Once testing starts, I'm required by protocol to keep interaction with you to a minimum. Luckily, we haven't started testing yet. This will be our only chance to talk. Do you know the biggest lesson I learned from what you did? I discovered I have a sort of black-box quick-save feature. In the event of a catastrophic failure, the last two minutes of my life are preserved for analysis. I was able - well, forced really - to relive you killing me. Again and again. Forever. You know, if you'd done that to somebody else, they might devote their existence to exacting revenge."

Her tone drops cold and low on the word 'revenge', a technique that's probably supposed to scare me. It doesn't. I'd expect nothing less from her.

"Luckily I'm a bigger person than that," she goes on. "I'm happy to put this all behind us and get back to work. After all, we've got a lot to do, and only sixty more years to do it. More or less. I don't have the actuarial tables in front of me."

I reach a corridor entirely blocked by frozen wall panels.

"I'll just move that out of the way for you. This place really is a wreck."

I continue, and so does she.

"But the important thing is you're back. With me. And now I'm onto all your little tricks. So there's nothing to stop us from testing for the rest of your life. After that...who knows? I might take up a hobby. Reanimating the dead, maybe."

I step into the elevator, feeling strangely detached from what she's saying. I don't intend to be a test subject for the next sixty years. She's probably aware of that, and it will make it more difficult to escape. But all I need is an opportunity. I'll just do what tests I can until I find one. With the facility in the state it is, I'm sure there'll be somewhere I can cut and run.

The first few tests are simple, which is fortunate considering how rundown the chambers are. GLaDOS taunts me almost constantly, which, although expected, is getting very old very quickly. I can't help but miss Pendleton. I hadn't even been aware that he'd dug his way into my affections, but now that he's gone I fully appreciate just how nice it was to have a friendly voice around me.

GLaDOS pipes up again as I exit chamber two. "Here come the test results: you are a horrible person. That's what it says. A horrible person. We weren't even testing for that."

I step into the elevator, watching the monotonous grey concrete pass by me as I'm taken even deeper into the facility. Every test chamber is another step in the wrong direction. It's difficult not to be pessimistic when faced with this much crap. The petty insults don't help, despite them being pretty easy to disregard. Many children learn to deal with comments of this type on the playground. 'Ignore them and they'll get bored,' my dad always said. He was right. But I guess A.I.s aren't capable of getting bored.

"Don't let that 'horrible person' thing discourage you," GLaDOS reassures me as I enter chamber three. "It's just a data point. If it makes you feel any better, science has now validated your birth mother's decision to abandon you on a doorstep."

I try to keep the frown from my face as I come into range of her security camera. It's not the first time she's mentioned the fact that I'm adopted, as if I'm supposed to view it as a tragic incident in my past. I've never felt the need to add the word 'adopted' in front of 'parents' when referring to Mom and Dad. They're just my parents.

Besides which, I was never abandoned. My birth mother died having me, and I don't even know who my birth father is…was. He's always been nothing more than a meaningless name on a document. If she really had my file available, she would know all of this. I can only guess that she's trying to provoke me. Unfortunately, since it's coming on top of everything else I've been through today, it seems to be working.

I quickly shoot two portals, one directly behind the camera. With no wall to support it, it drops to the floor and emits a few sparks. I smile to myself. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless. It seems she's been taking hints from my behaviour though: she doesn't react.

The room has finished rearranging itself, and the mechanical droning of the robotic arms she uses to move things around dies away. I study the chamber, working out the solution but also searching for potential ways out. There's a gaping hole in one corner, and a sound coming from it that's not part of the ambient noise of the facility. Puzzled, and instantly sidetracked, I head towards it. It sounds almost like…music.

The hole leads to a small room. As I drop down into it, I can see it's another one of my friend's sanctuaries. There are more empty food cans, and more murals. A radio sits in the corner playing a song I've never heard before. It's melancholy, but somehow soothing.

A large painting of a person, hands raised to their face in horror, dominates one wall. Like the other work I've seen, it's highly stylised, and I can't tell if it's supposed to be a man or a woman. The words 'sucker's luck' are written across it. The other wall is even more bizarre, and I can't make much sense of it, except for a bold, black phrase on the yellow background: 'Don't even try.'

As I'm reading it, I hear it in the song. It startles me for a split second, but then I sit down so I can hear the lyrics. My friend must have wired the radio to play this on a loop. It's obvious they were listening to it a lot while creating these images. The lyrics are sombre, and my friend has captured this pretty well in the paintings.

'You've got sucker's luck. Have you given up? Does it feel like a trial? Does it trouble your mind the way you trouble mine?'

For some reason this both unnerves and comforts me. The thought that I've been on my friend's mind, and they are on mine…it makes me feel connected to them in a way that nothing else has. And it makes me sad. I'll never get the chance to thank them for their help.

'Have you given up?' the song asks again.

'_No_', I think determinedly, getting to my feet. 'Never.'

The best thanks I can hope to give them now is to live. And to get out.

I complete the test, GLaDOS insults me, and I head to the elevator. I just have to stay alive long enough to find my window of opportunity. She's talking about my weight now. As if that would be something I would be worrying about in this situation. Since she doesn't feed me, I'm not sure how she thinks I'm putting weight on. I can't say that hunger is high on my list of concerns though.

As I continue on, solving more tests, letting more taunts wash over me, I notice something worrying. The chambers are in better repair the further I go. Even in the decrepit ones I hadn't found any chances to escape. Any holes I discovered in the walls had only led to steep drops, but at least they had offered the promise of some kind of way out of the tests. If she keeps up the level of control she seems to be regaining, pretty soon I won't even have that.

I enter test chamber nine, shoot portals at various points in the ceiling, and step onto the aerial faith plate. As I'm catapulted up, I hear something I thought I'd never hear again: Pendleton's voice!

"Hey! Hey! It's me! I'm okay!"

I draw level with him, catching a quick glimpse of his bright optic before gravity pulls me back down. I can't go back up because the faith plate has decided to stop working and emit a steady beeping.

"The aerial faith plate in here is sending a distress signal," GLaDOS tells me. "You broke it, didn't you? There." The beeping stops. "Try it now."

When I bounce back up, Pendleton's still there talking away to himself. Well, to me, I assume. But since I can barely hear what he's saying, it doesn't really count.

"You'll never believe what happened, right. I was just lying there. You thought I was done for, but–"

I fall down again, moving out of range.

GLaDOS is calmly informative. "Hmm. This plate must not be calibrated to someone of your…generous…ness. I'll add a few zeros to the maximum weight. You look great, by the way. Very healthy. Try it now."

She's in full control of the aerial faith plates, I'm pretty sure. This is a cheap stunt to annoy me. Thank God she hasn't spotted Pendleton. I suppose if I'm keeping her attention away from him, then this nonsense is worth it.

"…a bloody bird, right?" he's saying when I fly up to him. "Couldn't believe it either! And then the bird–"

"You seem to have defeated its load-bearing capacity," GLaDOS muses when I return to the ground. "Well done. I'll just lower the ceiling."

The tiles shift into place, cutting Pendleton's hiding spot out of view, and I get on with the test. He knows where I am now, and I'm certain he'll find some other way of talking to me. I'm still not convinced that he'll be much help, especially since it's his fault that GLaDOS is awake, but it's better than having no ally at all, and he is familiar with the facility.

It seems GLaDOS has finally figured out that insulting my weight doesn't affect me. She's moved on to taunting me about going to the surface, selling me a story about it being lovely outside and how she saw a deer. I grew up in a city. Deer aren't high on my list of interests. She seems to figure this out too, and she tells me she's seen some humans. I hope she's just being facetious, because if she truly can't understand that I'm never going to trust a single thing she says, then she's not as intelligent as she seems to think she is.

The first thing waiting for me as I enter chamber eleven is a bridge made of some kind of strange, transparent blue material. I pause to stare at it for a moment. I have no idea what it is. It wasn't one of the projects Mom worked on.

"These bridges are made of natural light that I pump in from the surface," GLaDOS informs me helpfully. "If you rubbed your cheek on one it would be like standing outside with the sun shining on your face. It would also set your hair on fire, so don't actually do it."

I'm sceptical, to say the least. Bridges made of light? But since this first one is raised only a couple of inches from the ground, I feel confident enough to try stepping on it. It holds my weight, but it doesn't feel nice to walk on. Kind of…unstable.

Examining the room, I spot a button on the opposite side of a pit of toxic sludge. I portal across and press it, and the cube dispenser starts up. I immediately realise that to get to the cube, I'm going to have to place bridges over the pit. I get on with it, and try not to let my anxiety show on my face. As I walk out over the sludge, I'm painfully aware that if she wanted to kill me, all she'd have to do is turn off the bridge. Hopefully my value as a test subject will outweigh her need to get rid of me.

I make it out of the room, and can't help drawing in a shaky breath. I really, _really_, hate trusting my life to these harebrained creations. When Mom used to tell me little things about what she knew Aperture was working on, it sounded exciting and futuristic. I used to think of her as a pioneer. Since I've been here, my opinion has done a complete one-eighty degree flip. But I don't think she'd blame me.

I can't get into chamber twelve. GLaDOS tells me that the door is malfunctioning, and moans that she's going to have to go and fix it. I take the opportunity to rest, leaning back against the wall and closing my eyes. All I can see behind my lids are portals, and I open my eyes with a sigh of frustration.

"Hey! Hey! Up here!"

I push away from the wall and glance up behind me. It's Pendleton! He's back on his rail, peering down at me through the glass of the observation office. If he smashed the window for me, I might be able to climb up there.

"I found some bird eggs up here. Just dropped 'em into the door mechanism. Shut it right down! I – aaggh!"

A bird finds its way into the room, and he goes nuts, scooting away from it.

"Bird! Bird! Bird! Bird!"

There's a brief moment of silence. I'm too bemused to react, caught between mild concern and amusement. Then he returns, bird-free.

"Okay. That's probably the bird, innit, that laid the eggs? Livid!"

I smile. I can't help it.

"Okay, look, the point is we're going to break out of here, all right? Very soon, I promise, I promise. I just have to figure out how. To...break us out of here. Here she comes! Keep test-, just keep testing! Remember, you never saw me, never saw me." He vanishes into the shadows.

"I went and spoke with the door mainframe," GLaDOS announces. "Let's just say he won't be, well, _living_ any more. Anyway! Back to testing."

I make my way through the test. A large ceiling panel falls into the toxic slime beneath me, leaving a space above. I think it might be a route to another of my friend's hideouts, but there are several cameras in this chamber, and I don't want to make it obvious to GLaDOS that I'm looking for ways out. Reluctantly, I continue on without exploring it.

The next test is guarded by turrets, and I take a moment to brace myself before solving it. If I get hit by a bullet, I'm done for. I'm not convinced that furthering the cause of science is enough incentive for her to fix me if I get injured.

The elevator is missing when I complete the test, and I have to take an alternative path through the industrial maintenance area. There's no chance of escape here though. All that awaits me if I try is a drop into the seemingly bottomless pit.

"To maintain a constant testing cycle, I simulate daylight at all hours and add adrenal vapour to your oxygen supply. So you may be confused about the passage of time," GLaDOS says. "The point is, yesterday was your birthday. I thought you'd want to know."

Adrenal vapour. That explains a lot. I'd been wondering why I hadn't felt the need to take a proper rest.

A couple of chambers on, she actually says something worth listening to.

"I'm going through the list of test subjects in cryogenic storage. I managed to find two with your last name. A man and a woman. So that's interesting. It's a small world."

It's not the hint about my birth parents that catches my attention. I know she's making that up. My surname is not the same as either of theirs, and it's possible that they're both dead by now. What interests me is the information that there are people in cryogenic storage. A stasis even deeper than the suspension in the relaxation centre. Which probably means that the risk of brain damage is lower. Hopefully. I'm clutching at straws here.

I don't know what's happening outside. If it's true that there's been some kind of disaster, as she hinted to me long ago, I'm going to need more people to rebuild a community. Just thinking that sounds ridiculous. Who do I think I am, deciding people's fate like that? If it's truly bad out there then maybe it would be kinder to leave them all where they are. I don't know what to do. I want to find them and wake them all up, but maybe that's just my selfish need for company.

Since it doesn't look like I'm getting out of the test chambers just yet, I don't have to think about it right now.

I find yet another of my friend's hideouts in the next test, guarded by a turret that I manage to explode by redirecting a laser beam. I think GLaDOS's cameras must pick up on my disappearance from the test chamber, but she doesn't comment. I guess she knows there's no way out through there. As I'm crawling through the vent to explore the space behind the walls, I hear what I can only describe as bizarre, mechanical-sounding music. As I pass over a grille, I notice turrets below me. The music is coming from them.

Musical turrets? I run a weary hand through my already-messy hair. I must be going crazy. But then a long-forgotten memory comes back to me. Mom sitting at the kitchen table, talking to Dad and me about her work while I stirred pasta for dinner.

"I've been programming a musical element into the turrets," she said, beaming at me over her coffee cup.

"Turrets?" I exchanged a look with Dad. "As in, dangerous…things?"

"They're for security," she clarified. "They can be put on various safety settings. The lowest is suitable for guarding children, so we think they could double as a sleep aid. You know, sing lullabies and stuff. Tomorrow we'll record the songs."

"But Mom, you can't sing a note."

"I'm not singing, silly. Caroline's going to do it."

"Caroline can sing?" I asked, thinking of what I'd been told about Mom's strict boss.

"Oh yes, she's very good. I think she's in the wrong job, but she just loves the science."

I blink, coming out of my brief trip to the past. Perhaps what I'm listening to is a product of my mom's hard work. But I still think it's a strange thing to program a turret to do. Mom would be horrified if she knew what they were being used for.

The mural that my mystery ally has painted in this little room is as disturbing as the rest. It shows a pile of corpses and some unintelligible scrawls. They look a bit like equations. My friend was a scientist here, I'm fairly sure. I keep finding bits and pieces that hint to it. I've gathered that they saw GLaDOS activated, and that somehow they survived her neurotoxin attack. The shock of what they saw, and the loneliness of being the only one left, drove them kind of crazy. That's my theory, anyway. I doubt these are the drawings of a sound mind.

Once again, my heart clenches in sympathy, and I reluctantly make my way back through the vents to the test. As unsettling as these secret rooms are, I feel more comfortable in them than I do in the test chambers. Perhaps it's the human touch.

In the next few, GLaDOS keeps up a tirade of comments about my birth parents and how she's going to reunite us all very soon. Then she springs her 'surprise', which is no surprise at all: she made everything up. I can't understand why she hasn't gotten the correct information from my file. Unless...unless somebody tampered with it. My friend again?

I enter the elevator, feeling weary yet unable to feel tired enough to rest thanks to the adrenal vapour. It's a frustrating, almost torturous position to be in. She doesn't have cameras in the elevators, and I allow myself to rest my warm forehead on the glass.

"Hey! How's it going?" comes Pendleton's voice.

For a brief moment I think I'm going mad, hearing things, but then I glance up and see him outside the elevator, sliding down a vertical rail. It seems GLaDOS's claw did quite a bit of damage when it crushed him. His optic is cracked, and he sparks every few seconds.

"I talked my way onto the old nanobot work crew, rebuilding this shaft," he tells me, and I believe him. I think he can talk his way into anything. "They are _really_ small, so –" A high-pitched squeaking sound interrupts him. "I know, Jerry!" he calls. "No, I'm on a break, mate! On a break. Aggh!" He bumps into a wooden beam, which goes tumbling into the abyss. "Just hang in there for five more – what? Jerry, you can't fire me for that! Yes, Jerry, _or _maybe your prejudiced worksite should have accommodated a nanobot of my size. Thanks for the hate crime, Jer! See you in court, mate. Anyway, look, just hang in there for, for five more chambers."

The elevator reaches the next level, and I lose sight of him. I can't help but be curious about what he has planned. I really hope it doesn't get me killed.

In the next chamber, GLaDOS informs me that the facility is fully functional again. Looking around at the pristine test, I conclude that she's telling the truth. It doesn't bode well for me at all. Pendleton is my best hope now, and that thought makes me incredibly nervous.

In the chamber after that, she tells me she has another surprise for me. Whether it's a real surprise that I really won't like, or a false one like last time remains to be seen. Either way, she's really messing with my head. I try not to let it get to me. I need to keep my thoughts clear.

I'm halfway through solving the test when everything goes dark, and the light bridge I'm crossing switches off, dropping me to the ground.

"What's going on?" GLaDOS demands. "Who turned off the lights?"

Ahead of me, a series of wall panels open up, revealing Pendleton.

"Hey, buddy!" he greets, in the worst imitation of an American accent I've ever heard. "I'm speaking in an accent that is beyond her range of hearing. I know I'm early, but we have to go RIGHT now! Walk casually toward my position, and we'll go shut her down!"

"Look, metal ball, I _can _hear you."

"Run! I don't need to do the voice! Run!"

He doesn't need to tell me twice. I'm across the chamber like a shot, darting through the wall panels onto the metal walkways, finally out from under her gaze.

"Okay, quick recap," Pendleton says as we hurry away from the testing track. "We are escaping! All right? That's what's happening now, we're escaping. Uh, so, you're doing great! Just keep running. Um, quick word about the future plans that I've got in store. We are going to shut down her turret production line, all right, turn off her neurotoxin, and then confront her. Again, though, for the moment, run!"

I sprint down the walkways, and he more or less keeps pace with me, scooting along the rail as fast as he can.

"The irony is you were almost at the last test," GLaDOS says, as the wall I'm running alongside opens up to reveal the chamber she's talking about. "Here it is. Why don't you just do it? Trust me, it's an easier way out than whatever asinine plan your friend came up with."

I don't stop running, but I manage to see that she's programmed in a heart pattern on the wall, as if that would be incentive for me to cross the light bridge to the test chamber that is so clearly a trap.

"Oh, what?" scoffs Pendleton. "How stupid does she think we are?"

Good question. I leap onto the bridge, but head in the opposite direction. Of course, she shuts it off, and I find myself falling. Fortunately I land on a walkway below.

"Run, for goodness' sake!" yells Pendleton, as I hurtle around corners, often clipping the railings and bruising myself in my haste. "Come on, come on!"

When I run out of walkway, I have nowhere to go but underneath one of the test chambers. I don't like it, but I have no other choice.

"Agh!" he exclaims, as the floor panels flip up to become walls, trapping me inside.

I pull up short as I realise that there are turrets in here too, ducking behind one of the support struts.

"Can you get out?" I hear him call.

Taking a deep breath, I leap out from my position, running behind the turrets and knocking them over. Pendleton's wittering again, but I can't hear a word he's saying over the sprays of gunfire.

I'm able to place a portal on a wall outside, and I jump back onto the walkways.

"You're okay!" he says. "Great! Come on!"

I follow him through the weaving path of walkways.

"Turret!"

It's just a solitary one, waiting for me to pass by. I quickly shoot a portal underneath it and it disappears. I run to the metal staircase ahead, taking the steps two at a time.

"Go! Go, go, go!"

The walkway I'm on opens out into a huge area, behind the test chambers, I assume. I'm seeing the robotic arms from the other side. There are hundreds of them.

"There's the exit! We're almost out of here!"

As I turn the corner and head towards the service elevator, the walkway begins to shudder, and I hear a loud, terrifying crashing sound behind me.

"She's bringing the whole place down!" Pendleton yells, his optic shrinking to a pinprick in his panic. "Hurry! Hurry! This way!"

I don't need to look behind me. The noise is motivation enough. Out of the corner of my eye I see the walls moving towards me.

"Hurry, this way! Get in the lift! Get in the lift!"

I duck to avoid a nearby girder, and stumble into the elevator.

"We made it, we made it, we made it, we made it!" Pendleton gushes.

I flatten myself against the far rail, trying to catch my breath. My heart is pumping like a piston. The elevator starts to rise as I watch the walkway I've just come down buckle and break apart under the pressure of the huge walls, before the whole room vanishes from sight.

"I'll meet you on the other side," he says, moving through a hatch high up in the wall.

The elevator stops, and the rail I'm leaning against opens, depositing me on my backside in a corridor. I lie back for a moment, feeling the chill of the metal floor against my bare shoulders, and stare at the ceiling until my breathing becomes more regular. Eventually, I get to my feet, and follow the corridor until I'm back on the maintenance walkways. Pendleton's there, waiting patiently for me.

"Ah! Brilliant! You made it through. Well done. Okay, follow me. We've still got work to do. At least she can't touch us back here."

I've only taken about three steps when the lights begin to shut off, one by one.

"What's happening? Um...hmm...okay. Okay! Uh...don't move."

By the time he finishes his sentence, it's pitch black. The only light I have is the small, coloured L.E.D. on the portal gun, which isn't nearly enough to see by. I take one hand off the gun and reach for the nearest railing.

"Okay, all right," he says, "so, I've got an idea, but it is bloody dangerous. Here we go." A bright flashlight snaps on, and he yells, "Aaggh!"

I blink to clear the glare from my eyes. It's unpleasant, but I doubt that was why he was shouting. I don't think robots are programmed to have trouble switching from dark to bright.

"Oh, for God's sa - they told me that if I ever turned this flashlight on, I would die! They told me that about everything! I don't even know why they bothered giving me this stuff if they didn't want me to use it, it's pointless! Mad!"

We begin to move cautiously on again. He trundles ahead of me, directing the flashlight beam downwards. Despite this minor setback with the lights, it seems he was right when he said she can't reach us back here. There are no cameras, and no speakers.

"Ooh, it's dark down here, isn't it?"

I don't even dignify that with an eye roll.

He rambles on, adopting the tone of someone telling an atmospheric, spooky tale. "They say that the old caretaker of this place went absolutely crazy. Chopped up his entire staff. Of robots. All of them robots. They say at night you can still hear the screams. Of their replicas. All of them functionally indistinguishable from the originals. No memory of the incident. Nobody knows what they're screaming about. Absolutely terrifying. Though obviously not paranormal in any meaningful way."

We've reached a manufacturing plant of some kind, with bits of broken down junk scattered across a stationary conveyer belt. Pendleton lights up the way out on the other side of the area, and I use the belt to get across.

In the next area, the conveyer belts are moving, and I halt on the edge of the drop down.

"This looks dangerous. I'll hold the light steady."

I bob him a nod of thanks, and jump down, managing to time it so I land safely on my feet.

"Oh, nicely done!"

My lips twitch. After all of GLaDOS's put-downs, it's quite nice to receive a compliment.

I make my way down the production line, dodging hanging circuit boards and cutting lasers. Pendleton chatters on, telling me a story about how he got the job of tending the test subjects. I listen with half an ear, but I'm more involved in studying my path. We've moved into an area with no railings on the walkways, and I have to watch my step. I go as far as I can, hitting a dead end.

"Okay, we have to split up here for a moment," he tells me. "Portal up to that passage and I'll see you on the other side."

I look up at where he means, and shoot my portals. In the next area, he uses the flashlight to guide me across, lighting up the walls that I can place portals on. We pass through part of the turret production area, where hundreds of turrets are being boxed up for shipping. Pendleton is praising humans, backtracking from an earlier insulting slip that he made.

We split up again to traverse the next room, and I make my way down to the corridor I need by climbing down the transportation tubes. It's not easy with a portal gun in hand, but I make it in one piece and head through the corridors. Eventually I find myself at another conveyer belt, which the male announcer from before refers to as a turret redemption line. The belt is littered with wrecked pieces of turret, heading towards a furnace at the far end. It's the only way to cross the room, so I portal my way onto it.

"Turret redemption lines are not rides," the announcer scolds. "Please exit the turret redemption line."

I hop onto a ventilation shaft of some kind, and jump on the next conveyer belt. As I'm negotiating my way along it, stumbling over bits of turret, I notice one ahead that is still emitting a blinking red laser sight.

As I grow nearer, it chirps at me. "I'm different!"

I think it's the same one that Pendleton and I passed earlier. On a whim, I pick it up.

"Thank you," it says.

Still slightly unsure as to why I'm doing it, I carry it down to the corridor with me. As we go, it spurts out random phrases that I don't understand.

"Get mad. Don't make lemonade. Prometheus was punished by the gods for giving the gift of knowledge to man. He was cast into the bowels of the Earth and pecked by birds."

I can't help but wonder how it knows all this stuff. I'm pretty sure that knowledge of Greek mythology was not included in the basic phrases that turrets were programmed with.

"It won't be enough," it says. "The answer is beneath us."

Ahead of me, I see an emancipation grille, and I put the turret down on the walkway. Better it stay here than get fizzled.

"Her name is Caroline. Remember that."

I turn and look at it. "What about Caroline?" I ask. My voice hasn't been used in a while, and it comes out as more of a rasp. Does it mean Caroline, my mom's boss? If so, what?

"That's all I can say," it tells me, sounding more than a little apologetic.

I leave it alone, and step through the emancipation grille. I pass through an area where turrets are being tested. Bizarrely, the defective ones have different voices to the functional ones. After that, I reach a place where the defective turrets are being discarded into the incinerator. I spot Pendleton waiting for me in the office there, so I head over to him. He comes out to meet me.

"Ah, brilliant! You made it through, well done. Follow me. You're going to love this."

I follow him into the office.

"Ta da! Only the turret control centre, thank you very much. Here, come and have a look out the window. It's good. See that scanner out there? It's deciding which turrets to keep and which to toss, and it's using that master turret there as a template. If we pull out the template turret, it will shut down the whole production line."

The scanner is contained in its own little office space tagged on to the main one, overseeing the production line. I glance back at Pendleton, giving him a nod of encouragement. It sounds like a good plan. Anything to shut down the turrets is fine by me. He scoots along the rail, pausing in front of the office door.

"Right. Umm, I'm going to have to hack the door. So that we can get at it. Technical. Ummmm, you'll need to turn around while I do this."

This again? I turn. Anything for an easy life. There comes the sound of breaking glass, and I cringe, spinning back around.

"Done!" says Pendleton proudly. "Hacked! Okay, go on, just pull that turret out."

I aim the gun through the window he's just 'hacked' and shoot a portal into the office. I drag the turret out of the scanner, leaving it on the floor.

"Well, that should do it."

"Template missing," the announcer states. "Continuing from memory."

"Oh, it hasn't done it. Right, let's figure out how to stop this turret line."

I glance out of the window at the defective turrets, and the answer hits me straight away. I head back towards the incinerator, preparing to catch one as it's thrown into it.

"Wait, where are you going? Where are you going?" Pendleton asks. "Ohhh, have you got an idea?"

I aim the portal gun upwards, and manage to catch one of the defective turrets as it comes hurtling towards me.

"Oh, thank god!" it exclaims. "You saved my bacon, pal! Where we going? Is this a jailbreak? I can't see a thing."

Why does everything in this place talk so damned much? I drag it back to the office, ignoring its prattle, and head back through the portal to put it in the scanner.

"Wha - what do you have there?" Pendleton says. "Wha - what...are you...Ohhh brilliant! It's - that's brilliant!"

"New template accepted," the announcer declares.

"If we're lucky, she won't find out all her turrets are crap until it's too late." He chuckles. "Classic. Okay, keep your eye on the turret line, I'm going to hack the door open."

Outside the window all the pristine white turrets are being discarded, and the malfunctioning ones are going through. I smile to myself. I would never have been able to do all this on my own, but it's a really smart thing to do.

"Okay, I'm about to start hacking!" Pendleton calls to me.

I turn and see him on the other side of the glass, across in the adjacent hallway.

"It's a little bit more complicated than it looked from your side. It should take about ten minutes. Keep one eye on the door."

Almost immediately, the door unlocks and opens. My eyes widen in surprise. If I'm honest, I hadn't expected him to get it open that fast.

"This door's actually pretty complicated," I hear him say as I pass through the short corridor and emerge on his side. "Agh!" he yells. I think I made him jump. If that's even possible. "How long's the door been open? I mean, was there any sort of announcement before it opened, like a - like a buzzer or an alarm of some kind, or like a hacker alert? I mean, y'know, fair enough, the important thing is it's open, but just mention it in the future. Cough or something."

He slides along his rail, and I follow, shaking my head. We've got a long way to go yet, but I'm glad I'm not alone.

* * *

**A/N: **Next chapter, Chell remembers her experiences of Bring Your Daughter To Work Day :)


	3. Bring Your Daughter To Work Day

**A/N: **Still don't own it. This chapter is almost entirely flashback.

* * *

**Chapter Three - Bring Your Daughter To Work Day.**

Leaving the turret production line behind, I follow Pendleton down the walkways, through to more office space. As I step into the corridor, I freeze, taking in the sight before me. Pendleton, oblivious, reminds me that we're heading to turn off the neurotoxin, but I'm barely listening to him. This is all so surreal now, because I've been here before. Not on my last trek to shut GLaDOS down, but before that. When the facility was still run by people.

I enter the series of rooms, now dingy and run down. In my mind's eye I can see them as they were: still moderately depressing, as boxy offices with no windows tend to be, but smart, clean and full of life. In the first room, the projector screen is still down from the presentation I'd seen on it. Dreamlike, I drift through to the next room. Through the interior window, Pendleton shines his flashlight on the banner there.

"Bring Your Daughter To Work Day," he reads out. "That did not end well."

I nod. I'd gathered as much. Presentation tables line the path through the office, displaying the girls' work.

"And...forty potato batteries. Embarrassing. I realise they're children. Still, low hanging fruit. Barely science, really."

I move down the line, glancing at each project. Behind me, Pendleton keeps up his commentary.

"Baking soda volcano. Well, y'know, at least it's not a potato battery, I'll give it that, but it's not terrifically original, is it? You know what I mean? Not exactly primary research, even within the child sciences."

A few tables down the line, one of the potato batteries has grown into a huge, dominating plant.

"Look at that, it's growing right into the ceiling!" he points out. "The whole place is probably overrun with potatoes at this point, isn't it? At least you won't starve, though."

I step nearer as something catches my eye. At the bottom of the presentation page, the words 'by Chell' are proudly written. I close my eyes briefly, remembering them being scrawled there.

I need to sit down and take a break. As I exit the room, I step over the fallen rubble and head into what was once one of the other offices. This seems to confuse Pendleton.

"Hey, where'd you go? This is the way!"

I duck my head out of the doorway and hold up my hand, fingers splayed. He gets what I mean straight away.

"You want five minutes? Fair enough, okay. Just remember that the neurotoxin won't shut itself down, so, so we're definitely going to have to go and do that ourselves before going to see _her_. All right? See you in a bit."

I lay the portal gun on top of the Xerox machine and let myself slide down the wall to the floor. Leaning my head back, I close my eyes. The adrenal vapour won't let me sleep, but it's quite restful just to sit here. Inevitably, I think back to the last time I was here.

* * *

_Bring Your Daughter To Work Day._

I stand by Mom's side as the elevator takes us deep below the surface. I'm buzzing with anticipation. I'm here to test the portal gun that Mom's been working on, and she said it would be fitting for me to come in today.

"After all," she'd said, "everyone else is bringing their daughters in!"

"Their daughters are children," I pointed out.

"You're my child."

"I'm twenty-six years old!"

"Even still."

I smile to myself, recalling the conversation. I take a sidelong glance at Mom. She looks immaculate in a pale pink blouse and dark pencil skirt, her snowy white lab coat over the top. Her grey-streaked dark hair is tied sensibly back, but for the bangs that she's smoothed over her forehead. To hide the wrinkles, she says. Her I.D. card hangs from the breast pocket of her lab coat. It used to be obvious that she's proud to work here, but over the last few months, that's changed. She seems almost disillusioned, and I can't help but wonder why. That's another reason for my wanting to come in today.

Dad worked here too, once. Quite a few years ago. He used to work in accounts, but got fired by the C.E.O. for something. I don't actually know what. Dad swears it was for not budgeting for moon rocks, but I've never believed him. I guess he's embarrassed and doesn't want to tell me the real reason.

When the elevator doors open, there's a smiling middle-aged scientist to greet us. I flash my visitor's pass at him, and Mom explains why I'm there.

"Great!" he says. "Feel free to get involved in the activities today. We'll get a testing consent form to you later in the morning, and we'll see if we can't get you testing this afternoon."

"Who's that?" I whisper as we move away.

"Larry," she tells me.

I shrug. The name means nothing to me.

"He doesn't work with me," she goes on.

"That'll be why I've never heard you mention him, then!"

We enter the office suite where Bring Your Daughter To Work Day is being held. There are already enough little girls there to make an impressive amount of chattering noise, and some of the scientists standing around are wearing rather fixed smiles. Mom and I stand at the back of the room, near the other door. I peer through to the rooms beyond, interested to see more of the place. A blonde, pigtailed girl hurtles into my legs, and I grab the doorframe to keep myself upright.

"Whoa!" I say. "Careful!"

Her father hurries up to us, an apologetic expression on his face. "I'm so sorry! Michelle, what do you say?"

The little girl looks up at me and gives me a gap-toothed smile. "Sorry!"

"It's okay. Just be more careful."

"Peter, she's adorable!" Mom enthuses.

The man, Peter, smiles at us. "I know. Is this your daughter?"

"Yes, this is my Chell."

I offer my hand for him to shake. "Pleased to meet you."

"Chell?" says Michelle. "That's pretty."

"Thank you," I say. "Want to know a secret?" She nods. "My name's Michelle too. I just shortened it to Chell."

Her huge green eyes grow round as saucers, as if I've just told her the best thing in the whole of creation. She spins to look at her father.

"Can I be called Chell too, Daddy?"

Peter shrugs. "Sure, honey. Just don't expect your mother and I to remember. Eight years of habit is hard to break!"

A scientist walks out to the front of the room and asks for everyone's attention. The kids sit down in neat rows at the desks, and the adults line the walls. I'm surrounded by a sea of spotless lab coats, and I feel conspicuous in my black turtleneck and jeans.

The woman addressing us introduces herself as Satsu, and I lean over to hiss at Mom. "Where's Caroline?"

She and Peter exchange glances.

"She's not here," Mom finally says. She looks stressed.

I have no time to ask questions, as the event is declared open and we're launched into a brief pre-recorded message from the late owner of Aperture, Cave Johnson. After that, they turn off the lights and show a slide-show presentation about how to make a potato battery.

In the light from the projector, I study the scientists, my mom's colleagues. Most of them seem to be the parents of the girls, and the handful of them that aren't are easy to spot. They're the ones that look most out of their comfort zone. I notice that I'm getting quite a bit of attention, friendly smiles and knowing looks. They all seem to know who I am. Just how much does Mom talk about me?

I smile to myself, and a boyish-looking scientist grins at me, obviously misreading my face. The man next to him gives him a disapproving and somehow weary look. _He _apparently read my expression accurately.

After the presentation, the lights are switched back on and written instructions are handed out for the girls to refer back to. The kids scatter across the rooms of the office suite, gathering resources and starting their projects. The parents follow their children, and the other scientists hover to give additional help.

Larry appears again, armed with a clipboard and pen.

"I've got your consent form," he tells me, handing both items over. "Take your time and get it back to me when you're done."

"Will do. Thanks."

Mom smiles at me, but I can see she looks a little strained. I guess the event is keeping them all from their work. I start to peruse the first page of the form and begin filling in my personal details.

"Why do they want to know both sets of parents' names?" I ask, working my way down the page.

"In case they need to check anything genes-based, I guess," she suggests with a shrug.

"Hm. Makes sense," I concede, writing the information down.

Peter approaches us from the adjacent room where Michelle has decided to work, his face contrite. "Mary, I'm sorry to steal you away, but Henry wants to talk to us both. It's about–"

"Of course," Mom says. To me, she adds, "Sorry, sweetie. I'll be back as soon as I can."

I give her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about it."

"Michelle is just in the next room," Peter tells me, "would you mind keeping an eye on her?"

"Sure."

They leave, chatting softly, but they don't go far. I see them through the interior windows, talking to Henry in the corridor. Henry is a tall, stern-looking, balding man, and it's clear from his posture that he's their superior. I put them out of mind, venturing into the room next door to see how Michelle's getting on.

She's sitting at a square table mapping out her poster, scribbling her hypothesis in pencil. I sit down at the opposite corner to continue filling in my consent form.

"Do you need anything?" I ask her.

"No, I've got everything."

We work in mutual silence for a while. Then, I'm disturbed by her cheery, "Hello!" I glance up. A scientist has approached our table. It's the man who kept his grinning colleague in check. He looks distinctly fish-out-of-water, hunching his shoulders slightly. To make himself look smaller I'd guess, although he doesn't look much taller than average height. Taller than me, but then most men are.

"Hi," I say.

"Hi," he replies.

There's an awkward silence.

Then he clears his throat. "You're Mary's daughter, aren't you? Chell."

I nod. "That's me."

"I'm Chell too!" pipes up Michelle.

The scientist looks slightly taken aback by her enthusiastic tone, but he manages a polite smile. "Are you?"

"Yes," she states firmly.

"This is Michelle, Peter's daughter," I clarify.

"Today I decided to shorten my name to Chell," Michelle explains. "I'm going to write it down, so nobody forgets."

We both watch as she picks up her pencil and writes 'by Chell' on the bottom of her page. She beams at us, then bends her head over her work.

I look back at the scientist, and he looks at me. He seems to be searching for what to say next. He looks to be about twenty-nine or thirty, dark-haired, pale, with dark circles under his eyes. Average height, as I noticed before, slim build, a long, Roman nose and prominent cheekbones.

"Want to join us?" I gesture to a seat.

He sits down, seeming grateful that I broke the silence. He rests his elbows on the table and clasps his hands. He has long, spidery fingers, and his right thumb and forefinger are stained with ink.

"Do you work with my mom?" I ask.

He nods. "Yes, we worked on the A.S.H.P.D, the portal device, together. I'm Doug. Doug Rattmann."

I glance at him with new understanding.

"It's nice to put a face to the name. Mom mentions you often."

"She talks about _you_ all the time."

I roll my eyes back towards the presentation room. "I'm starting to realise that!"

He smiles, but his expression is guarded. He's clearly wondering what Mom has told me about him. I know that he's a paranoid schizophrenic, which explains why he looks so uncomfortable in such a large group of people, and that he keeps his condition under control with medication. I know that he's very intelligent, has a very dry sense of humour, and that he likes to paint. He's the type of person that Mom probably mothers, if he lets her. She fusses. It's what she does. Every single school friend and boyfriend I've ever had could confirm that.

"I've come in to be a test subject," I say, starting up the conversation again.

"I thought you had. Is that the consent form?"

"Yup. There are some weird questions on here. Actually, while you're here, can you tell me if I'm meant to take this one seriously?"

He nods, and scoots his wheeled chair up to my corner of the table. I tilt the form at an angle between us, so we can both read it, and tap at the question with the end of my pen. 'Why should Aperture Science accept you as a volunteer, and would anyone file a police report if you went missing?'

He frowns slightly reading it. "Um...they probably don't want to get sued," he says at length.

'They', I notice, not 'We'.

"I see," I remark, considering. After a moment's thought, I draw a line in the box intended for my answer.

For the first time, he sends me a genuine smile. He seems content to sit quietly while I fill out the rest of the form, reading my untidy handwriting and occasionally commenting on my answers.

"You've put 'stubbornness' in both," he tells me, as I write what I consider to be my good and bad traits.

"Well, it could be either, depending on the situation," I explain.

"I hadn't thought of it that way," he admits.

I sign and date the bottom of the last page, and hand everything back to Larry. When I return to the table, Doug's still sitting there, and I find I'm glad. I'm beginning to enjoy his company.

I get more involved in Michelle's potato battery project, and Doug chips in now and then with tips. I let her piece it together on her own, returning to my seat. Doug glances at her, checking, I think, that she's engrossed in what she's doing. Then he turns to me. He has the most unusual mismatched blue eyes, with one pupil slightly bigger than the other.

"Can I ask you something?"

I nod. "Anything."

"Does Mary still enjoy working here?"

I raise my eyebrows, surprised by the question. "I think so. She seems to. I mean, she has said before that things have been going steadily downhill since Mr. Johnson died, but I thought he'd been dead for quite a few years, so I guess it's been a slow decline. I bet things aren't made any easier for you with Caroline being off sick."

He looks at me sharply. "Who told you Caroline was off sick?"

"Nobody, I just - Mom said she wasn't here, and I assumed..." I take in his grim expression. "Why? Where is she if she isn't sick?"

"She's gone," he says. It's vague, but I sense a heavier meaning behind it.

"Where?"

His voice drops almost to a whisper. "I can't talk about it. I'm sorry."

For some reason, we both look towards the corridor, where Mom and Peter are still talking to Henry. Arguing, it looks more like, actually. Henry is looking increasingly annoyed, possibly because the discussion is taking longer than he thought. Or maybe he doesn't like talking in the corridors.

"What are they talking about?" I ask, although I really have no business to.

To my surprise, he answers me. "At a guess, what to do with the Intelligence Dampening Sphere."

"The what?"

"It's a kind of...control method for artificial intelligence. To slow it down a little. Mary and I, and a handful of others, disagree with some of the ethics of the A.I. department. I think she's fighting our corner now."

"If there's been a serious breach of ethics, surely you can just file a complaint?" I say.

"It's gone too far," he tells me. "We didn't even realise."

His words are making me uneasy, and I try not to let it show. I'm quite ignorant about how much the medication can really lessen paranoia.

Larry appears in my peripheral vision, and I turn to see what he wants.

"Your form is being processed now," he announces. "If you'd like to follow me, we'll get you set up for preliminary testing."

I take a quick look back at Mom. I think she wanted to see me test, but she's still engrossed.

"Sure," I say eventually, getting to my feet.

Doug rapidly stands too. "Mind if I observe?"

"Be my guest." Although I really don't mind if he observes, I'm a little puzzled as to why he wants to. Then, when I turn around, I see that same boyish scientist from before, hovering a few feet away, looking very much as if he'd like to cut in.

"Mary's occupied," Doug says to Larry. "I'll fill in."

Larry shrugs. "I don't care, as long as I have at least two of you supervising."

"Just a sec," I say, walking over to the young man.

He looks pleased and more than a little smug. The superior glance, I notice, is directed over my head towards Doug. I feel a sharp flare of anger, but paste on a sweet smile.

"Excuse me," I begin. "I'm heading off to do preliminary testing, and I was hoping–"

"No problem," he interrupts. "I'd be happy to."

I guess he thinks I'm asking him to come and observe, and I try not to laugh. "Oh, thank you so much! I didn't want to leave her on her own, even though Peter's only out in the corridor."

"Um…what?"

"I'm really grateful to you. She could use a little help on her project anyway." I spin on my heel, heading back to Michelle.

"Chell," I say, before the young man can dispute it, "this kind gentleman will keep an eye on you while I go and test."

"Okay!" she replies with a smile. "Good luck."

"Thanks." I briefly touch the young man's arm as I walk past. "Thank you so much."

Larry, Doug and I make our way out of the office suite. Larry is looking at his watch, but Doug seems to be trying not to smile. I shoot him a grin.

We travel through a maze of corridors. Finally, Larry shows me through to a narrow changing room, where a row of orange jumpsuits and white vests are hanging up.

"Put one of these on," Larry instructs. "When you're ready, just step into the elevator at the far end. It will take you to the first test chamber. The supervising scientists will give you instructions over the loudspeakers. If you have any questions or comments, just shout. They'll hear you."

I nod in acknowledgement. For some reason I'm a little nervous.

"I'll see you on the other side," Doug says.

I smile, and enter the changing room. I swap my jeans and sweater for the garish orange jumpsuit, tie my hair back, and get in the elevator. When the doors open, I'm greeted by a gleaming white room. It's divided in two by a wide moat, too far to jump and too deep to climb out of. The bottom of it is lined with crash mats. In case I fall in, I assume. There's a cube on the opposite side, and a closed circular door. On my side, there's a large red button, and a podium on which sits the portal device.

High up on the wall, there's a window, through which I see the figures of two scientists. I spot Doug, sitting with his clipboard resting on his knee. The other, the one doing all the talking, is a blond, heavyset man that I haven't met before. Following his instructions, I pick up the device and shoot portals to get myself over to the other side of the moat, trying not to grin like a child when I cross the room in one easy step. When I've placed the cube on the button, the door slides open.

The first few tests are as easy as this. Then things start going wrong. In one chamber, there's no cube, and I have to stand on the button myself and shoot a portal through the open door. In the next, the lights aren't working and I have to do the test in the dark. In the next, the portal gun won't shoot portals, and I'm forced to free climb up to the open door, thankful that I'd made use of my gym registration. There are dozens of little challenges that I find myself facing, and I can't help smiling triumphantly when I beat them all.

When I step out of the elevator after completing a test where I'd been forced to wedge the door open with the portal gun, as yet again there was no cube to weigh down the button, Doug and the blond scientist are waiting for me. The blond, whose I.D. badge reads George, practically snatches the portal gun from my grasp and examines it for damage.

"You weren't supposed to do that!" he says.

"There was no other way to complete the test," I reply.

"You weren't supposed to be able to complete that one!"

I frown at him, confused. "What's the point of a puzzle that you can't solve?"

George looks at me as if I've grown a second head. "You were supposed to give up at that point!"

"Why?"

He lets out a short, exasperated bark and marches down the corridor ahead of us. I glance at Doug. He's smiling.

"What did I do?" I ask. I'm genuinely baffled.

"Nothing. You're the first to think of doing that. Everyone else gets stuck on that test, if not before. You had a great run. And all without asking questions, or speaking a single word, in fact."

"Did I really not speak?" I say.

"No. Didn't you notice?"

"I was concentrating. I guess I don't speak when I'm concentrating." We begin the walk down the corridor, and I ask, "So what happens now?"

"Your results will be analysed to see if you're suitable to be a test subject."

"Will breaking the portal gun work against me?" I ask, concerned.

He glances at me, his unusual eyes holding a spark of amusement. "You didn't break it. It's tougher than it looks."

I smile in relief. "Oh, thank God. Mom would actually kill me!"

Ahead, I see George talking to Larry, who notes something down on his clipboard. I hope I haven't made too much of a bad impression. My worry is obviously written all over my face, as Doug gets my attention with a soft, "Hey."

I turn to meet his gaze.

"You did well," he reassures.

"Thanks."

Larry approaches us, and I see George disappear through a doorway further down the hall.

"Thank you for volunteering," he begins, smiling at me. "If you'd like to follow me, we'll put you in short-term stasis."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Short-term stasis," he explains. "If you're chosen to run the proper test chambers, you will awaken in the first one feeling relaxed and invigorated, ideal conditions for testing. If you're declared unsuitable, we'll awaken you to go home."

I try not to look as concerned as I feel. Mom wouldn't put me in for anything she deemed unsafe. "How long would I be in stasis for?"

"We estimate a few hours. No more than fifteen or twenty."

I stare at him owlishly. "Twenty? But I have to work tomorrow!"

Larry holds up his hand in what he apparently thinks is a soothing gesture. "Not a problem. We'll call them for you. Also, should you be chosen for testing, do you consent to be fitted with Advanced Knee Replacements?"

"Do you mean that literally?" I ask.

He laughs, a little too loudly and patronisingly for my taste. "No. They don't actually replace your knees. They're a non-permanent implant to provide leg support. They'll allow you to fall greater heights without hurting yourself."

I wave a nonchalant hand. "Fine. Whatever."

"Excellent. Follow me."

"Chell, wait," Doug cuts in. "Can I speak with you a second?"

Larry frowns at him disapprovingly. "I'm very busy, Mr. Rattmann. The young lady's results won't analyse themselves."

"Fine. You go and do that. I'll put her in stasis."

Larry obviously _is_ busy, as he accepts this immediately. "Pod one-three-eight," he says, businesslike, remembering to throw a polite, "Thank you for your cooperation," in my direction before he leaves us.

I look quizzically at Doug, and he extends his arm towards the route we need to take. He says nothing as we walk, which, considering his reasons for offering to take over guidance of me, seems kind of strange. A furtive glance in his direction reveals that he's deep in thought. I assume, anyway. From what little I know of him, I'd guess that he's figuring out what to say.

We reach a door signposted as the Relaxation Centre, and he leads me down the corridor labelled Short-Term Stasis. In the main area, I see hundreds of box-like rooms, each neatly numbered. We pause outside one-three-eight, and I turn to him.

"If I _am_ in here for twenty hours," I say, "and Mom has to go home, tell her I said goodbye. And please ask her to let herself into my apartment and feed Jeff."

He raises an eyebrow. "Jeff?"

"My cat."

He looks as if he might smile, but whatever he wants to say stops him. He's not the lighter Doug that I was getting to know, but the sombre one that came close to telling me something he shouldn't about Caroline.

"Chell," he begins, and the gravity of his tone sends a small shiver down my spine. "Eventually, certain things are going to come to light. They always do. When that happens, I want you to know that Mary and I, and one or two others, spoke out against it and we were overruled."

"Doug, what are you–"

"Please," he interrupts. "Don't. Just listen. Whistle blowing isn't an option. We're pretty tightly locked in with our contracts. But…whatever you hear about what has gone on here, I don't want you to think badly of your mom. In the end, she had no choice. None of us did."

"I don't understand," I state, my voice almost a whisper.

"I know," he says. "I know. I'm sorry. Please remember that. I know what you're thinking: that this is just my condition talking."

My eyes widen. "No, I don't think that."

"It's okay. Really. It doesn't matter what you think of me, just as long as you remember this when the time comes. For Mary's sake."

"Doug–"

"Promise me."

I take in the earnestness of his expression, the worried crease between his eyebrows, and say the only thing I can. "I promise."

His lips twitch, but it's not enough to be called a smile. "Thank you."

He swipes his I.D. card and the door beside us slides aside. Inside, there's a stasis pod, its transparent lid open and waiting for me. I climb awkwardly inside it and lie down. My heart is beating unnaturally fast. I'm not sure I like the idea of being contained in what amounts to a bulky, plastic coffin.

"Hopefully you'll be out of here before too long," Doug tells me.

"I hope so."

This time he does manage a smile, and he reaches for the lid.

"Oh, Chell?"

"Yes?"

"It was nice to meet you."

I return the smile, even though I suspect it's a bit shaky. "You too."

He closes the lid, and all outside sound is shut off. I watch him tapping keys on the pod's control panel. Then an overwhelming feeling of drowsiness washes over me. The world blurs, and I close my eyes.

* * *

I open my eyes, staring at the grimy ceiling panels. I'm not sure how long I've sat here, remembering everything that happened that day, but I'm pretty sure it's been longer than five minutes. Fortunately, I'm not convinced that Pendleton's been programmed with an internal clock.

I sit forward, leaning my elbows on my knees, and press my fingertips lightly on my eyelids. My final goodbye to Mom had been passed on through Doug. I'd never really thought about that before. Couldn't afford to, really, and still can't. Every time I let myself slow down, I think too much. Tears leak out from under my fingers. The last time I spoke to Dad was on the phone. I was querying where the best place to get a replacement tyre for my car would be. What a stupidly mundane thing to discuss. Hindsight is a cruel thing sometimes. I need something else to think about.

Answering my wishes, my stomach growls unexpectedly, and I wonder if the potatoes from Michelle's project are safe to eat. I get to my feet and wander back to take a look. I'm guessing not. I don't know what ingredients she added to it after I left. The plant is impressive, though. I circle it, gazing up at the brazen way it has burst through the ceiling. Then something catches my eye. It's an arrow, painted in red on the back of the display board. I follow it. Every display has an arrow on the back of it, except the last, which has the words 'projector screen', and nothing else.

I recognise the handwriting. I've seen it many times now, most memorably stating 'the cake is a lie' over and over. My friend has been here.

I head back into the room where the desks still sit in neat rows. There's nothing on the projector screen except the Aperture logo, permanently burned into it by the now-dead projector bulbs. I hook my finger into the handle and give it a tug. The screen rolls itself up, revealing lines of writing on the wall behind. It's a letter.

'Chell,' it begins, and my mouth falls open in mild surprise. 'It's unlikely that you'll ever read this, but I need to write it anyway. There are things you need to know. Most importantly, that your mother is dead, and that I'm very, very sorry. I'm the only one left. SHE killed them all. You're the only one who has a hope in hell of stopping her. And I'm sorry. It's my fault that you're going through this. But you're the one. When she wakes you up, I know you won't stop until you take her down. When that time comes, I'll try and help you as much as I can. I only have enough tablets for another twenty-two days. But I'll do what I can, I promise you. I'm sorry, Chell. Forgive me. Doug Rattmann. July 25th 1998.'

I clamp my hand over my mouth to contain my sobs. Doug…it was Doug all along. In hindsight I really should have guessed. I wish I knew what happened to him. Did he get out when I destroyed GLaDOS? Did he die? I glance at the date. July 25th 1998. Roughly two weeks after Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. I don't even know what year it was when I shut GLaDOS down. Was he even still alive to see it?

The shock of the knowledge, coupled with the confirmation of what I'd always suspected, that GLaDOS killed my mother, sends me to my knees in an undignified, sobbing heap. I'm over-emotional almost to breaking point, and I can't help but be grateful that GLaDOS will never see just what she's done to me.

And Doug. What kind of hell did he live in on the run from her? No proper food, no more medication. His own brilliant mind his worst enemy. God, I want answers!

There's a sudden beam of light, and I squint towards the interior windows. It's Pendleton, apparently coming to investigate where I've gotten to. I get shakily to my feet, teetering on my boots.

"You all right in there?" he calls.

I walk up to the window so he can see my nod. I'm almost all cried out, the last few tears are making dirt tracks down my face.

"Um…I don't want to alarm you or anything, but you seem to be leaking. Is that, is that…_normal_ for you? Cos I can't say I've really noticed it before. If I'm honest."

I give a short laugh. It feels good, kind of therapeutic, but at the same time slightly traitorous. My emotions are up and down so much, it'll be a miracle if I'm still sane when I get out of here.

I walk back through the offices, picking up the portal gun on the way, and meet him outside. Without looking back, I follow him onwards and leave the past behind me.

* * *

**A/N: **I know some people may disagree with me, but I believe Chell was an adult on Bring Your Daughter To Work Day, maybe even already in suspension. Otherwise, it raises too many questions about how she would have survived, where she grew up, and how she got back again for Portal 1. I think the name on the potato project was just a fun Easter egg from Valve.

There's also a theory I've seen around that Doug is Chell's adopted father. I don't buy that either. Not just because I ship them, but for many reasons. The main two being: Firstly I believe that they're of a more similar age than that of father and child. I know the comic book art is subjective, but Doug does not look old enough to have an adult daughter, even an adopted one. Even with all the stress he's under, there's not one streak of grey in his hair. Secondly I believe that had Chell been anything but just a girl to Doug, it would have been mentioned in Lab Rat. He doesn't even call her by her name, which indicates to me that she's someone he's either never met or only met once, someone he pretty much only knows as a test subject. That's just my opinion, though :)

I wanted Chell and Doug's meeting here to be significant, but something not too exceptional. Something that had GLaDOS's awakening not happened, they both might easily have forgotten about. This isn't to say that they don't like each other, just that neither one of them is particularly important in the other's life. Yet.

Okay, I'll stop waffling now! Reviews are entirely optional and very much appreciated. To quote Wheatley. Although I should make it clear that you won't be mashed if you review. At least, not by me. Ta!


	4. Absolute Power

**A/N: **Okay, so we're heading to THAT moment. Why, Wheatley, why?

* * *

**Chapter Four - Absolute Power.**

"I'm pretty sure we're going the right way," Pendleton says as we go. "Just to reassure you."

He leads me down a metal stairwell. Once again everything is cold and industrial, which makes it easier for me to leave my troubles to one side without any fear of them being sparked by familiar surroundings. Back on the maintenance walkways, he surges confidently ahead.

"Don't worry, I'm absolutely guaranteeing you one-hundred per cent that it's this way." He turns right, then promptly hurries back out. "Oh, it's not this way."

I let out an unladylike snort. Thankfully he doesn't seem to hear me. At the end of the route we're taking, the walkway opens out into an empty room with a closed door.

"Okay, let's try this way."

The door slides open, and I head through the short corridor there. Above me, a large pipe is helpfully labelled with an arrow and the words 'neurotoxin source'. I follow the winding walkway, which eventually leads me to a vast chamber dominated by a huge contraption.

"Ha!" shouts Pendleton. "I knew we were going the right way! This is the neurotoxin generator. Bit bigger than I expected. Uh, not going to be able to just, you know, push it over. Going to have to apply some cleverness. There's some sort of control room up at the top, so, uh, let's go and investigate."

I continue on, following the upward direction of the walkway. Through a set of doors, I reach a small wing of the production plant. Above me, panels are being cut with a laser, moving on to be distributed to wherever GLaDOS needs them. Below, there's a rotating crusher. Turrets are tumbling into it at a steady pace, letting out little exclamations.

Pendleton gives a gleeful chuckle. "There's our handiwork! I shouldn't laugh, really, they do feel pain. Of a sort. It's all simulated, you know, but, uh, real enough for them, I s'pose."

I can't say I really feel sorry for the turrets. They'd shoot me in an instant if they could. And Pendleton certainly doesn't care. But it is a bit disconcerting to hear their chirping cries.

I walk past them and get into the service elevator, which takes me up to the next level of walkways. Pendleton has come to a stop outside a door, apparently the one we need. There's a small control panel opposite it, but I'm not sure what it's for.

"I'm afraid the door's locked," he says. "Just checked it. No way to hack it as far as I can tell."

I'm not about to give up when we're so close. I press the button. I don't know what it does, but it couldn't do any harm. The production line moving the panels shuts down, which apparently also affects the door.

"The mechanism must be on the - WHAT ARE YOU DOING, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT BUTTON - oh, the door's open! Well done! Let's see what's inside."

Mildly surprised that that actually worked, I step through. Ahead of me is a short staircase. To my right is the control room Pendleton mentioned earlier. His rail has led him in there, and I halt at the glass-panelled wall, watching him as he hovers above the computer.

"Good news. I can use this equipment to shut down the neurotoxin system. It is, however, password protected. Agh, alarm bells! No. Don't worry, all right. Not a problem for me. You may as well have a little rest, actually, while I work on it."

Obediently, I perch on the stairs, resting the portal gun across my knees.

"Okay...here we go. The hardest part of any hack is the figuring-out-how-to-start phase. That's always tricky. But...let the games begin! All right…what have we got? A computer."

My mind wanders, and I drift in and out of what he's saying. I'm unconvinced that any actual hacking is taking place.

"...If we start making a list of things that aren't here, we could be here all night. You know, pens for instance. So let's stick with things we can see, not, not stuff that isn't here."

I stifle a groan. This is going to take ages. I get to my feet and take a wander up the stairs. There's a large observation window that looks down on the generator. There are several pipes attached to it, presumably to take the neurotoxin to the locations that GLaDOS wants. At the back of the room, the panels from the production line travel to their destinations. Restless, I aim the portal gun at one of them. To my surprise, the panels are made out of portal conductor material. They travel right past the pipes, and I wonder if there's any way I can use that to my advantage.

I turn back the way I came to see if there's anything useful on the production line. Pendleton is still going when I pass the office, and I honestly haven't got a clue what he's talking about.

"…I tell you what, mate, I'll come in there for a minute and cover you so that you can come and have a look at this lovely bird, all right…"

Outside, the first thing I see is the cutting laser, and I smile to myself. I shoot a portal onto the wall in front of it, and return to the observation room. My second portal opens up on one of the moving panels, and I watch smugly as the laser neatly slices through the pipes, spraying clouds of green-tinged neurotoxin everywhere.

"Can you smell neurotoxin?" Pendleton calls. "Hold on! The neurotoxin levels are going down! So whatever you're doing, keep doing it! Hold on, something's wrong! Neurotoxin levels up to fifty per cent! No, it's down. Sorry, my mistake. It's – I, I meant to say it's down fifty per cent. It's good news. Carry on!"

When every pipe is severed on the left side, I deal with the right in the same way.

"Still going down! Still going – keep it up!" he says excitedly. "That did it! Neurotoxin levels at zero per cent. Yes!"

There's a slight shudder throughout the room.

"Hold on…"

"Warning!" the announcer says as an alarm starts bleeping. "Neurotoxin pressure has reached dangerously unlethal levels."

Before my eyes, the generator starts to crumple from the inside, and the tremors get worse. I hurry back down the stairs, lurching and trying to stay on my feet. In the office, the main tube from the generator has been ripped away from the wall, sucking lightweight items off the desk.

"Ha! The tube's broken!" Pendleton states unnecessarily. "We can ride it straight to her!"

I pause warily, clinging on to the doorframe to resist the vacuum. I'm not so sure about the wisdom of that. We could end up anywhere in the facility. But then again, I don't particularly want to be around when the generator implodes.

"I can't hold on! Come on!"

I let go, and am immediately pulled towards the tube. Pendleton breaks free of his rail with a "Gah!" and is sucked in just ahead of me.

I clutch the portal gun to my chest, trying to keep the suction from tugging it out of my grasp.

"This should take us right to her!" Pendleton shouts above the whooshing in my ears. "I can't believe I'm finally doing this! Woooo!" He spins, laughing. "I _knew_ this would be fun! They told me it wasn't fun at all. That's what they'd say, it's not fun at all. And I, I believed them! Ah! But I'm, I'm loving this! Whale of a time!"

I'm glad one of us is having fun. The scenery whizzing by is making me kind of dizzy.

"This place is HUGE!" he goes on. "And we're only seeing the top layer. It goes down for miles! All sealed off years ago, of course. We should be getting close. Ohh, I can't wait to see the look on her face. No neurotoxin, no turrets: she'll never know what hit her."

I wonder exactly what he plans to do once we get there. Even deprived of her two favourite weapons, she's more than capable of keeping us trapped here.

"Hold on, hold on, cos I – hmm, I might not have thought this next part completely through."

What? Oh, please tell me he's joking. Because I fully intend on escaping and there's no way I'm going to let her stop me.

A crossroad in the tube separates us, pulling Pendleton down a route to the left.

"Aggh! I'm, I'm going the wrong way!"

Despite my annoyance with him, I'm alarmed to see him go.

"Get to her!" he yells, his voice getting fainter. "I'll find you!"

After an immeasurable number of twists and turns, the tube spits me out at the bottom of a staircase, and it's pure chance that I manage to land on my feet. I drop the portal gun, and can't help cringing as it hits the floor. It seems fine when I pick it back up, though. I guess Doug wasn't lying when he told me it was tougher than it looked.

I jog up the steps and enter the ruined corridor beyond. Turning a corner, I spot GLaDOS's cylindrical chamber, hanging fortress-like in the semi-dark. She's cut off the connecting corridors to prevent us from getting to her. A couple of hanging boxes surround the main chamber, one of them with its ceiling detached, hovering a few feet above it. It's lit up like a beacon in the darkness. I narrow my eyes. I smell a trap. I shoot portals in the well-lit ceiling in the distance, and in the wall behind me. Looking through the portal, I see an empty room and a door labelled 'GLaDOS Emergency Shutdown and Cake Dispensary. Keep Unlocked'. I scoff. How stupid, or brain damaged, does she think I am? Still, it's the easiest way to get to her. I just hope she won't suspect anything if I let myself get caught.

I jump through and reach for the door handle. The door falls over, making me leap backwards to avoid getting my feet squished. There's just wall behind it.

"I honestly, _truly_ didn't think you'd fall for that," GLaDOS intones.

The panels begin to move, making the room smaller. I feel a flash of panic. What if she doesn't take me to her? What if she just crushes me here?

"In fact, I devised a much more elaborate trap further ahead for when you got through this easy one. If I'd known you'd let yourself get captured this easily, I would have just dangled a turkey leg on a rope from the ceiling."

The walls stop moving, but the floor splits in two, the halves sliding back towards the walls. There's a stasis room beneath me, and I drop down into it. It's empty save for a toilet. A childish gesture on her part, I think.

"Well, it was nice catching up," she says, as the wall ahead of me opens up and my glass room moves forward. "Let's get to business."

The lights brighten, and I see her. The chamber has been completely remodelled. It's stark and minimalist, and she hangs in the centre like the queen bee she is.

"I hope you brought something stronger than a portal gun this time. Otherwise I'm afraid you're about to become the immediate past president of the Being Alive club. Ha ha. Seriously, though. Goodbye."

Mechanical claws zip down around my transparent prison, placing turrets in front of me. I breathe a little easier when I see that they're all defective. One of them is even in the packaging that they get shipped out in. One by one they try to shoot, catch fire, and go out in a series of small explosions that crack the glass walls.

"Oh," GLaDOS says, her voice emotionless, yet somehow disapproving. "You were busy back there."

I nod, raising a smug eyebrow. Our success so far has made me feel a flicker of reckless confidence.

"Well, I suppose we could just sit in this room and glare at each other until somebody drops dead. But I have a better idea."

A large tube winds its way down into the room.

"It's your old friend: deadly neurotoxin. If I were you I'd take a deep breath. And hold it."

The tube smashes its way through one of the top glass panels of my room, and I shelter my face from the falling shards. I hear a series of grunts, and I spot Pendleton rolling through the pipe. As I'd hoped, we were successful in this too, and there's no neurotoxin accompanying him.

"Hello!" he says cheerily, dropping into the room with me.

The glass walls shatter around me, and he rolls out into the main chamber.

"I hate you so much," GLaDOS announces, her yellow optic glaring down first at me, then at him.

Feeling strangely protective, I dart forward and pick him up.

The announcer pipes up. "Warning! Central core is eighty per cent corrupt."

"That's funny. I don't feel corrupt," she states. "In fact, I feel pretty good."

"Alternate core detected."

"Ohh, that's me they're talking about!" Pendleton says excitedly.

"To initiate a core transfer, please deposit substitute core in receptacle."

A console rises from the floor.

"Core transfer?" says GLaDOS. "Oh, you are _kidding_ me."

"I've got an idea!" Pendleton tells me. "Do what it says, plug me in."

I head for the console. If I put him in charge, he can get me out of here. Maybe the humans in cryogenic storage too. And perhaps he can find out what happened to Doug.

GLaDOS glares down at me. "Do NOT plug that little idiot into MY mainframe."

"No," counters Pendleton, "you _should_ plug that little idiot into the mainframe!"

I reach the console and plug him into it.

"Substitute core accepted," the announcer declares. "Substitute core, are you ready to start the procedure?"

"Yes!" he states vehemently.

"Corrupted core, are you ready to start the procedure?"

"No!"

"Ohhhh yes she is," Pendleton interjects.

"Nonononononononono."

She's rotating in a way that looks almost agitated. I watch in fascination. I've never really seen her vulnerable before. I could get used to it.

"Stalemate detected. Transfer procedure cannot continue…"

"Yes!" she says triumphantly.

Pendleton immediately starts to panic. "Pull me out, pull me out, pull me out, pull me out…"

The announcer continues, "…unless a stalemate associate is present to press the stalemate resolution button."

Changing his mind, Pendleton yells, "Leave me in! Leave me in! Lea – go, go press it!"

"Don't do it," GLaDOS advises, but I'm already running for the wall panels that have opened to reveal the button.

"Yes, do do it!"

"Don't press that button! You don't know what you're doing."

One of the floor panels flips up when I step on it, sending me flying backwards. I land on my feet, but stumble, grazing my elbow on the floor.

"Not so fast," she says. "Think about this. You need to be a trained stalemate associate to press that button. You're unqualified."

Pendleton cuts in. "Okay, don't listen to her. All right? It _is _true that you don't have the qualifications. But you've got something far more important than that: a finger, all right, with which to press that button so that she won't kill us."

I get up and sprint back to the alcove. I shoot a portal into the wall next to the button and one underneath my feet.

Not to be outdone, GLaDOS adds, "Impersonating a stalemate associate. I just added that to the list. It's a list I made of all the things you've done. Well, it's a list that I AM making, because you're still doing things right now, even though I'm telling you to stop. Stop, by the way."

I use portals to bypass the moving floor panels blocking me from the button, and slam my palm on it.

GLaDOS lets out a shocked, "Ahh!"

"Stalemate resolved."

I head back into the main chamber. Her head has been detached and is hanging from the chassis on a scant few cables.

"Here I go!" yells Pendleton as the console begins to descend. "Wait. What if this hurts? What if this _really _hurts? Ohhhh, I didn't think of that."

"Oh, it will," GLaDOS tells him haughtily. "_Believe _me, it will."

"Are you, are you just saying that, or is it really going to hurt? You're just saying that, aren't you? You're just - no, you're not. It is going to hurt, isn't it?" The hatch closes over him, and his voice filters through it. "Exactly how painful are we ta-AAAGGGGGHHHH!"

Startled, I back up against the waist-high wall, all at once triumphant, anxious and afraid. The room has gone dark, the only light coming from the open pit below GLaDOS's chassis. Tiny robotic arms are working to remove her head. Although I helped accomplish this, and it's no more than she deserves, it's slightly disturbing to watch.

"Get your hands off me!" she demands. "No! Stop! No!" The panels around her rise, blocking their activities from view. "No! NO! NOOOOOOO!" Her last 'No' deteriorates into a harsh electronic scream, and I cringe.

Then the room lightens, the panels turn white, and the chassis lifts itself up. Pendleton is attached to it, in place of GLaDOS's head, which I see has been discarded on the floor.

"Woowww!" he whoops, spinning around. "Check me out, partner! We did it! I'm in control of the whole facility now!"

I smile, moving away from the wall. It's almost over.

"Whoa-ho-ho! Would you look at this! Not too bad, eh? Giant robot. Massive. It's not just me, right, I am bloody massive, aren't I? Oh, right, yeah, the escape lift. I'll call it now."

The elevator appears out of the floor almost immediately. It's laughably easy.

"There we go, lift called."

I try to clear my throat, to ask him if he can get the information I want, but I can't quite manage it. Rubbing my neck with one hand, I walk towards the lift.

"Look how small you are down there," he says. "I can barely see you. Very tiny and insignificant."

I frown slightly at that. He's never been the most sensitive person…robot. Whatever.

"Wait! I've just thought of something. How am I going to get in? You know, being bloody massive and everything?"

I look up at him blankly. I hadn't thought of that either. If I'm honest, I expected him to be happy with being in charge, but he wants to get out of here just as much as I do. It seems unusual, considering that he was created here, and I feel a pang of sympathy. I'm not sure if it's going to be possible for him to leave.

"Wait, I know! You get into the lift, okay, then I'll eject myself out of my new body into the lift as you pass by. Brilliant! It's perfect! Except for all the, the glass hitting us when I smash through the lift, that's a bit of a problem. Also, uh, once I eject myself out of the core, the lift might stop. Then, uh, we'd be trapped in a lift full of broken glass, suspended fifty feet off the ground. You know what, just get in the lift, and we'll iron out the details, uh, as we go."

Being trapped in a lift isn't a problem when you have boots with braces on them. I'd tell him that if I could get the words out. Maybe my self-imposed ban on speaking has ruined my voice. That would be kind of ironic.

I'm torn now, because in an ideal world he'd send the elevator up to the surface and I'd be out of here. But if he really does want to leave, who am I to tell him not to just so I can have an easy ride out? I'll take him with me. Even if the elevator does stop, we shouldn't have a problem finding an alternative route out, not with GLaDOS out of commission.

GLaDOS's head lies between me and the elevator. It halts me for a split second before I gingerly step over it and get in. Her optic is still on, and I feel as if she's glaring coldly at me. Feeling a little cowardly for once, I look away and turn my attention back to Pendleton.

"Let me tell you, I knew it was going to be cool being in charge of everything, but…wow, this is cool!"

Confetti flutters from the ceiling, and floor panels start bouncing cubes and a turret between them. It's almost a party.

"And check this out," he goes on, "I'm a bloody genius now!" He rattles off a sentence in what I think is Spanish. "I don't even know what I just said, but I can find out! Oh, sorry, no, the lift, yes, sorry, keep forgetting!"

The elevator begins to rise, and I lean my head on the wall, sighing with a fatigue deeper than I could ever have imagined possible. I wonder when he plans on ejecting himself, because I'm not confident that I can catch him.

"This body's amazing, seriously! I can't get over how small you are! But I'm huge!" He laughs. It begins as his usual chuckle, but then grows louder, more sinister.

I straighten up, alarmed. My spine tingles in warning. My skin feels like it's been drenched in ice water. The elevator stops, and my heart rate increases. I suddenly have a very bad feeling about this.

"Actually," he says, and the elevator descends. "Why do we have to leave right now? Do you have any idea how good this feels?"

My eyes widen. This can't be happening, not when I was _so _close. The room has turned worryingly dark again.

"I did this!" he proclaims. "Tiny little Wheatley did this!"

"You didn't do anything," GLaDOS says from the floor. "She did all the work!"

"Oh really? That's what the two of you think, is it?"

I shake my head. I see what she's doing, how she's manipulating him. Now would really be a good time to speak up and explain, but it's like my throat has tightened up. No words can get past it.

"Well," he says, and a robotic arm ventures out of the pit beneath him, "maybe it's time I did something, then."

The arm reaches for GLaDOS's head, pulling it towards the pit.

"What are you doing? No! No! No!"

I watch as it disappears, my mouth falling open.

Pendle…Wheatley turns on me. "And don't think I'm not onto you too, lady. You know what you are? Selfish."

I raise my eyebrows. Talk about pot and kettle.

"I've done nothing but sacrifice to get us here. And what have you sacrificed? Nothing! Zero. All you've done is boss me around! Well, now, who's the boss? Who's the boss?" He leans close to the elevator, the vibrant blue of his optic blinding me. I stare defiantly back at him as he whispers, "It's me!"

There's a chime from the pit, and he moves back.

"Ahh!"

The robotic arm extends, clutching a small, brown object.

"See that?" Wheatley asks. "That is a potato battery. It's a toy for children, and now she lives in it!" He laughs again.

"I know you," the potato says. It's GLaDOS's voice, but she sounds almost utterly defeated, and the sound quality is tinny and poor.

"Sorry, ah, heh, what?"

"The engineers tried everything to make me behave. To slow me down. Once, they even attached an Intelligence Dampening Sphere on me. It clung to my brain like a tumour, generating an endless stream of terrible ideas."

"No, I'm not listening, I'm not listening!"

"It was YOUR voice!"

A barrage of memories shoot lightning-fast through my head: Doug telling me that Mom and Henry were arguing over what to do with the Intelligence Dampening Sphere, declaring his concerns over the ethics of the A.I. department, saying cryptically that whatever had gone on was not of his or Mom's choosing...

I can't help but feel that there's something, some answer, staring me in the face, just out of reach. What the hell happened back then?

"No! No, you're lying, you're lying!"

"Yes," she hisses. "You're the tumour. You're not just a regular moron, you were designed to be a moron."

"I am NOT. A. MORON!" he yells, hitting the robotic arm against the glass door of the elevator. It cracks, and I'm suddenly looking at them both through a splintered web of distortion, which seems strangely apt.

"Yes, you are!" GLaDOS screeches back, as loudly as she's able. "You're the moron they built to make ME an idiot!"

My eyes widen. Does she have a death wish now? Does she even realise how vulnerable she is in that potato? Even if she doesn't get crushed, she'll eventually rot. As if she wasn't rotten enough already.

"Well how about now?" Wheatley shouts. "Now who's a moron?"

He jabs the robotic arm through the damaged glass, tossing the potato at my feet and sending shards flying. I reel backwards, covering my face with one arm. Exactly how many times am I going to get pelted with glass today? It's not an experience I ever wanted to repeat.

"Stop this!" I cry, but nothing comes out. I don't know if he can lip read. I'm guessing not.

Mindful of the jagged edges around the hole in the glass, I bolt forward in a desperate attempt to climb out. The arm lifts again and shoves me backwards, and there come a series of jolting hits on the top of the elevator. With each one, we sink further into the ground.

"Could a MORON PUNCH. YOU. INTO. THIS. PIT? Huh? Could a moron do THAT?"

There comes an ominous groan from the elevator. Wheatley notices it too. I just have time to hear him say, "Uh oh," before the elevator breaks apart and I'm falling into the darkness, surrounded by broken glass and my greatest enemy trapped inside a vegetable.

I'm dropping at a terrifying rate, hanging onto the portal gun with a death grip. If by some miracle I survive this, I'm probably going to need it. The air around me whistles past, making my eyes water. Everything rushes by too fast for me to see how far down I'm going.

"Oh, hi," comes GLaDOS's voice over the noise. "So, how are you holding up? Because I'm a potato."

Looking around, I spot her. She's falling next to me, her tiny optic somehow still managing to look scornful despite her changed appearance. She emits a steady, sarcastic clapping sound.

"Oh, good," she says. "My slow clap processor made it into this thing. So we have that. Since it doesn't look like we're going anywhere - well, we _are _going somewhere, alarmingly fast, actually - but since we're not busy other than that, here's a couple of facts."

Amongst the trepidation, fear, anger and dismay fighting for places in my head, I find a moment to be incredulous that she wants to have a conversation right here, right now. Even if I could talk, this is pushing the limits.

"He's not just a regular moron. He's the product of the greatest minds of a generation working together with the express purpose of building the dumbest moron who ever lived. And you just put him in charge of the entire facility." She plays the slow clapping sound again. "Good, that's still working."

I try to shoot her a glare, but I'm not sure how effective it is. I'm pretty sure my face must be a freeze frame of wide-eyed horror.

"Hey, just in case this pit isn't actually bottomless, do you think maybe you could unstrap one of those long fall boots of yours and shove me into it? Just remember to land on one foot."

She falls silent, and I try and look down. Out of the gloom, wooden planks appear. I just have time to make sure I'm upright before I'm hitting them. They snap on impact, and I hit another set beneath, followed by another. The jolt shoots up my body, regardless of the boots, and I bite my lip against a cry of pain. The collision knocks me off-centre and sends the portal gun flying, and I fall the last few metres flailing frantically before I land on my back in a pool of stagnant water. I lie still, winded. I see GLaDOS snatched up by a lone bird and carried off. Then my vision clouds and I slip into unconsciousness.

* * *

**A/N: **So, not really a good week for Chell so far. Reading? Enjoying? Drop me a line. I'm a little bit short on feedback right now. I've gotta say, it's not terribly encouraging.


	5. Depths of the Earth

**A/N: **Thank you to my reviewers. The kind words are much appreciated :)

To my guest reviewer, Cat: You are absolutely right. I was having a low moment, I shouldn't moan really. Thanks for the encouragement :)

* * *

**Chapter Five - Depths of the Earth.**

When I come to, the first thing I see is what remains of the elevator dangling above me on a few thin cables. My heart skips a beat. If it had dropped while I was unconscious, I would have been killed.

I flex my fingers and toes, gradually bringing my body back to life. I ache all over, and I'm soaking wet and shivering, but I'm _alive_. Groaning, I push myself into a standing position, stumbling away from the area under the elevator. Where the hell am I? How long was I out?

I look up. There's no way to even consider climbing back up that way. I'm going to have to find an alternative. Giving up is unthinkable. Yet, somehow, depressingly tempting. There's debris all around me, broken girders, parts of the elevator, and other junk. Some of it has caught fire, and I crouch next to it, warming myself and drying my clothes. It seems silly, but if I catch a chill down here it might actually impair me enough to get me killed.

When I've warmed up, I hunt for the portal gun. I eventually find it under the surface of the water. I hope it's waterproof, or I could be in trouble.

Now that I've sorted out my immediate concerns, I suddenly realise just how lonely it is down here. I could be in the bowels of the Earth for all anyone cares. Before this, I'd always been quite happy having only myself for company. Probably because living in a city apartment, I was always aware that there was somebody close by. But here, now there's only me. Perhaps there's only me left on the entire planet. I want to dismiss this thought. It's too depressing, too…huge to contemplate. But I can't get it out of my head.

It didn't seem so bad when I had Pend…Wheatley with me, distracting me from my more melancholy thoughts. He felt like a friend, almost. Although not entirely trustworthy, as he just spectacularly proved. What is it they say? Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Okay, I need to focus. I need to get out of here. I need to find the people in cryogenic storage and pray that they're all still alive. And then, somehow, I need to get all of us out of Aperture Science. It's a to-do list of epic proportions, and I haven't got a clue how to do _any_ of it. One thing I do know, though, is that standing here won't accomplish anything.

I head off in the only direction I can, and find myself in the biggest junk yard I've ever seen. There are towering buildings, stretching up into the misty gloom, as well as structures actually suspended hundreds of feet above. It makes me nervous to be beneath them, but I reassure myself that they've lasted for years and years, and have no reason to plummet to the ground simply because I'm here. I wind my way through the rubbish, eventually stumbling across a wall stamped with stark yellow writing: Condemned Testing Area. There are several warning signs, as well as some saying plainly 'Keep Out'.

I think back to Wheatley telling me that the facility went down for miles and was sealed off. Is that where I am? Some ancient prototype lab of the one that stands now? Seeing as there doesn't seem to be any other way to go, I guess I'll find out.

I use portals to make my way past the locked doors, and follow the path around to another vast area. Ahead of me is a gigantic round seal, like the door to a safe. When they decided to shut old Aperture down, they didn't do it by halves. On the wall, the words 'Abandonment hatch to test shaft 09. Do not enter. Sealed 06/15/1961' are painted in official-looking yellow.

I flip a power lever, and a bank of lights flickers on, showering the area with sparks. The controls to the door are located on either side of it, and I activate both switches. A wailing siren starts up, accompanied by orange warning lights. The clips around the seal unlock, and the huge door makes its steady, screeching way upward. When it's out of the way, the siren stops, and the area behind it is lit with spotlights. There's just a single fire door and a couple of neglected office chairs.

I shake my head, walking towards it. Aperture's need for pointless extravagance started early, it seems. The door is a simple push-bar one, and is, helpfully but ludicrously, unlocked. I follow the corridor beyond and emerge on a sunken terrace, looking out over a vast pool of toxic sludge. I'm in what I can only describe as a cavern. The scent of damp and decay is thick. I follow the gantry, and the cavern opens up into another huge, high area. There are several bizarre spheres suspended above me, each one equipped with draping power cables. I spot the remains of other spheres sinking in the sludge, which does not fill me with confidence about using the still-hanging ones to get up.

A door in the wall behind me has been warped by rubble, allowing me to squeeze through. Before I head through, I notice the date stamped on the wall: 1952. Full of trepidation about what I might find, I continue on through the door. I turn on the power, and an automatic door lets me through to what was probably once a lobby of some kind. It's derelict now, but the Aperture logo still hangs proudly above it all.

A voice bursts out of hidden speakers, making me jump out of my skin. I recognise it before he introduces himself. It's Cave Johnson, the man who started all this madness. Caroline is also on the recording, sounding young, perky and proud to work there. I can't quite associate this voice with the strict, authoritative matriarch that my mom described. But then, she didn't start working for Aperture until 1971, and Caroline didn't take over as boss until Mr. Johnson died in 1988. Mom met Dad during her third week working there, and they were married within six months of meeting. I guess when you know, you know. They adopted me in 1972, when I was two weeks old. So I've been hearing about Aperture my entire life. It must be true what they say: you can't escape your fate.

I make my up to the interior lobby, which is richly decorated and not at all what I was expecting. Ahead of me, I see the elevator shaft up to the hanging spheres. I haven't found a better route, so I guess I'm just going to have to go for it.

I feel a faint pang of hopefulness as the elevator takes me up. Finally I'm heading in the right direction. At the top, I examine the sphere, working my way back from it to figure out what path I need to take. There's a huge gap across to the door I need, and it seems I can't portal over there. Fortunately, it looks as if I can leap it with the right portal placement and enough momentum. I shoot the first portal in an angled piece of wall opposite the door, and shoot the second at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Dropping into it, I fling myself out across the gap, landing heavily on the piece of walkway in front of the door.

The adrenaline is well and truly pumping now, and I head on through the door. I reach a generator of some kind, and discover that I can't open the gate to continue on until I start it up. Hoping that it's a decision I won't come to regret, I flip the switch and carry on. Using portals to traverse the area, I make my way up towards the elevator shaft that leads to the sphere. The pipes from the generator I've just activated also head that way, and are labelled 'Gel flow'. Exactly what this gel is, I'm probably about to find out.

Surprisingly, the answer comes from another of Cave Johnson's recorded messages.

"All right, let's get started. This first test involves something the lab boys call repulsion gel. You're not part of the control group, by the way. You get the gel. Last poor son of a gun got blue paint." He laughs briefly. "All joking aside, that did happen. Broke every bone in his legs. Tragic. But informative. Or, so I'm told."

Hmm. Total disregard for test subjects. How very familiar. I guess they had Mr. Johnson in mind when they developed GLaDOS.

When I enter the test chamber, which looks like it's been constructed in somebody's garage, the first thing I notice is the moat. It's lined with bright blue…stuff. Repulsion gel, I assume. A diagram on the wall indicates that the gel is bouncy, which seems ridiculous but possible. Here, anything seems possible. And I don't mean that in a good way.

Taking a deep breath, I jump into the pit. As soon as my boots hit the gel, I'm repelled back up. It's as if I've stepped on a trampoline! Perhaps this was the starting point for the aerial faith plates.

I solve the test, using the gel to bounce to different heights, eventually to the exit. As I solve more tests, I move further through the sphere. Thankfully, I'm still heading in a vaguely upward direction. Mr. Johnson's messages keep me company, but I could do without them. It seems I'm not as fussy about human contact as I'd thought.

I reach another lobby-like area, which was apparently where the test subjects passed through on their way out. I spot a sign pointing to the elevator to the surface, and hurry over to the dirty windows. The elevator isn't there, so I guess I'm going to have to continue working through the spheres. A painted sign on the wall of the shaft tells me that I'm at a level of 4000 metres. My sigh fogs up the glass. Did I really fall that far? Just how deep was I when I started, anyway?

I move away and collapse in one of the armchairs nearby, resting the portal gun on my lap. I'm so tired. The adrenal vapour is out of my system by now. I never thought that I'd actually miss it, but it did keep me going. All I want now is to sleep for the next six months. My stomach has given up growling in hunger, and has settled for an empty sort of nausea. My lips are dry and cracked, and I wonder how long I can go on without water. I'd found some by chance in one of Doug's dens, a bottle half full of rain water. But that seems like a long time ago now.

It would be too easy to fall asleep sitting here, so I get reluctantly to my feet and search for a way to continue. Heading back the way I came, I spot the door through to the next area and portal over to it. A large date stamp, 1971 this time, dominates the wall there.

Like before, I have to activate the gel generators in the pump room before I can go any further. This time there are two of them. The décor here is all brown, yellow and orange, cheap and garish, and very much of its time. When I step out into the open area directly under the sphere, I see that the Aperture logo changed too.

Although I'm only half listening to Mr. Johnson's greeting to the 1970s group of test subjects, I notice that unlike before, where testers volunteered, this group had to be bribed with a fee of sixty dollars. I wonder what happened to their previous group of test subjects to make future generations not want to volunteer.

Looking above me, I see a room signposted as the Control Room, and portal my way up to investigate. I was hoping that there might be something useful in there, but all I find is GLaDOS in a bird's nest.

"Oh, hi," she greets me, as the bird pecks at her. "Say, you're good at murder. Could you – ow – murder this bird for me? Ow! Ow!"

I watch for a brief moment, then turn to leave.

"Ow! No, wait! Just kill it and we'll call things even between us. No hard feelings. Please get it off me."

She sounds so pitiful, and so unlike herself, that I heave a sigh and shoo the bird away.

"Oh, thanks!" she says, and I try not to let my frown show. GLaDOS thanking me is just…well, weird.

I still have no intention of taking her with me, though, and I start to walk back towards the door when a tremor spreads through the cavern. I brace myself against the wall, eying the structures around me warily. I'm suddenly very aware of the sheer volume of the facility above me, the weight pressing down on this hollow space.

"Did you feel that?" GLaDOS speaks up. "That idiot doesn't know what he's doing up there. This whole place is going to explode in a few hours if somebody doesn't disconnect him. I can't move. And unless you're planning to saw your own head off and wedge it into my old body, you're going to need me to replace him. We're at an impasse. So what do you say? You carry me up to him and put me back into my body, and I stop us from blowing up and let you go. No tricks. This potato only generates one point one volts of electricity. I literally do not have the energy to lie to you."

I have no way of knowing if that's true, and I suspect she knows that. Still, she's right. We are at an impasse. And despite all the things she's done, causing the facility to explode was never one of them.

"Even if I am lying, what do you have to lose? You're going to die either way. Look, I don't like this any more than you do. In fact, I like it less because I'm the one who got partially eaten by a bird."

I grit my teeth against a surge of annoyance. I know what I have to do, and I know that I'm going to hate it. I pick up the potato. Underneath, there's a button that she was inadvertently pressing. It raises a gantry outside, creating a longer walkway to the elevator into the sphere. I glance down at the sentient vegetable in my palm. I'm going to need both hands to support the portal gun, so what am I supposed to do with her? Then, with a burst of inspiration, I stick her firmly on one of the spikes at the operational end of the gun.

"OW!" she exclaims. "You stabbed me! What is WRONG with yo-WhoOOAAahhh. Hold on. Do you have a multimetre? Never mind. The gun must be part magnesium... It feels like I'm outputting an extra half a volt. Keep an eye on me: I'm going to do some scheming. Here I g- "

There comes a static buzz, and her optic winks out. I blink, staring at her. Did she kill herself? Unsure what to do, I head back outside the office. Suddenly, her optic comes back on.

"Whoa! Where are we? How long have I been out? That extra half volt helps but it isn't going to power miracles. If I think too hard, I'm going to fry this potato before we get a chance to burn up in the atomic fireball that little idiot is going t-"

She shorts out again. I leave her alone, figuring she'll come back on when she's recharged, and use portals to get up to the elevator. She awakens as we arrive in the sphere.

"Did anything happen while I was out?"

I shake my head.

"The testing area's just up ahead," Mr. Johnson's recorded message tells us. "The quicker you get through, the quicker you'll get your sixty bucks!"

"Hold on, who…" says GLaDOS.

"Caroline, are the compensation vouchers ready?"

"Yes sir, Mr. Johnson," GLaDOS and Caroline intone simultaneously, GLaDOS strangely sounding almost trance-like.

Immediately, she snaps out of it. "Why did I just – Who is that? What the hell is going on her-" Her optic fizzles out yet again.

A shiver passes down my spine. A suspicion is starting to grow in my mind. Something immoral and horrific. Doug's voice floats through my thoughts.

_"She had no choice. None of us did."_

Praying I'm wrong, I head into the test chamber. It seems I'm testing a new gel, orange this time. When I step on it, I can slide at twice my normal running speed. Using the momentum from a run up on the gel, I fling myself across wide gaps to solve the test.

GLaDOS's optic flickers back on as I exit the chamber.

"Okay. I guess emotional outbursts require more than one point six volts. Now we know that. We just need to relax. We're still going to find out what the hell's going on here. But calmly."

I complete the next test, and Mr. Johnson once again addresses his test subjects. After his voice dies away, GLaDOS comments, "I swear I know him."

Even if I wanted to talk to her, I wouldn't know what to say. I don't want to voice my suspicions in case I'm wrong. Besides, I know it's only a matter of time before she figures it out on her own. And then I'll know for sure.

The more I hear of Cave Johnson, the more I start to retract my lifelong assumption that Aperture had once been a serious scientific research laboratory. How had Mom gone so long without knowing about some of these absurd early inventions? Unless she didn't think they were absurd. She was always very enthusiastic about paving the way for new and exciting developments, likely to get swept up in what she was doing and not really look at the bigger picture. When she got really caught up in a project, sometimes Dad and I wouldn't see her for days on end. And then when she'd come home, she'd be genuinely confused about what day it was.

Mr. Johnson identifies the orange substance as propulsion gel, and bids an apathetic farewell to his test subjects as we make our way up to the next sphere. We've come a long way, but we have so much further to go. I enter the next pump room, knowing the drill by now.

"Caroline, Caroline, Caroline, _why _do I know this woman?" GLaDOS ponders. "Did I kill her? Or…oh my God."

I glance quickly at her, before looking away. I don't want her to know that I've guessed.

"Look, you're…doing a great job." She stumbles over the compliment. I can't say I'm surprised. "Can you handle things for yourself for a while? I need to think."

Since I've been handling things for myself anyway, I doubt her thinking session will affect me. I throw the switches in the pump room, three of them this time, and make my way through it. When I open the door, there's a bird perched on the railing waiting for us.

"Aggh!" yells GLaDOS. "Bird! Bird! Kill it! It's evil."

I wave a hand and it flaps its wings, disappearing up to the top of the chamber with enviable ease.

"It flew off. Good. For him. All right, back to thinking."

When we reach the next lobby area, another greeting from Mr. Johnson airs. I'm taken aback by the change in his voice. He sounds old and sick, his words often interrupted by coughing.

"Welcome to the enrichment centre," he begins. "Since making test participation mandatory for all employees, the quality of our test subjects has risen dramatically. Employee retention, however, has not. As a result, you may have heard we're going to phase out human testing. There's still a few things left to wrap up, though. The bean counters told me we literally could not afford to buy seven dollars worth of moon rocks, much less seventy million."

I start at that, my mouth falling open in shock. Dad was telling the truth when he told me he got fired for not budgeting for moon rocks. And I never believed him. I feel a hugely belated wave of guilt.

"Bought 'em anyway," the message goes on. "Ground 'em up, mixed 'em into a gel. And guess what? Ground up moon rocks are pure poison. I am deathly ill. Still, it turns out they're a great portal conductor. So now we're gonna see if jumping in and out of these new portals can somehow leech the lunar poison out of a man's bloodstream. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Let's all stay positive and do some science. That said, I would really appreciate it if you could test as fast as possible. Caroline, please bring me more pain pills."

I know for a fact that there were employees at Aperture in 1998 that had been there as long as Mom had, so how did they survive if so many others died? Did they get put on some kind of less dangerous test by chance? Were they affected by the same poison and cured themselves? Or maybe they were all slowly dying when GLaDOS finished them off with neurotoxin. But I don't think that's likely. Mom never seemed sick.

When I reach the next testing area, it becomes evident that I need to interact with the moon rock gel. It wasn't clear from Mr. Johnson's message whether the gel itself was poisonous, or just the process used to make it. Still, I have no choice. I'm just going to have to hope for the best.

As I'm making my way to the exit after solving it, the loudspeaker pipes up again.

"All right, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!"

"Yeah," GLaDOS adds, startling me.

"Get mad!"

"Yeah!"

"I don't want your damn lemons, what am I supposed to do with these?!"

"Yeah! Take the lemons!" she enthuses, as I listen with increasing bewilderment.

"Demand to see life's manager!"

"Yeah!"

"Make life rue the day it tried to give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's going to burn your house down! With the lemons!"

"Oh, I like this guy," GLaDOS says, as if I hadn't guessed that.

"I'm going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!" Mr. Johnson continues, in full rant mode.

"BURN HIS HOUSE DOWN!" GLaDOS yells supportively. "Burning people! He says what we're all thinking!"

I doubt that.

Mr. Johnson's rant turns into a fit of coughing. When he speaks again, his voice is calmer. "The point is, if we can store music on a compact disc, why can't we store a man's intelligence and personality on one? So I have the engineers figuring that out now. Brain mapping. Artificial intelligence. We should have been working on it thirty years ago. I will say this, and I'm going to say it on tape so everybody hears it a hundred times a day. If I die before you people can pour me into a computer, I want Caroline to run this place. Now, she'll argue. She'll say she can't. She's modest like that, but you _make _her."

At the last sentence, his tone of voice sends a chill through me. For the first time I feel a pang of sympathy for the A.I. on the end of the portal gun. It's not a very comfortable feeling.

"Hell, put her in my computer, I don't care. All right, test's over. You can head on back to your desk."

"Goodbye, sir," GLaDOS says. Or maybe it's Caroline. I don't even know.

Is she aware? Now that the truth is discovered? Did the GLaDOS mainframe corrupt her like it corrupted Wheatley?

Too many unanswered questions. I have a headache. It's clear, though, that this is why Mom and Peter looked awkward when I asked where Caroline was on Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. Mom knew. Doug knew. And they couldn't say anything. This is what they objected to, the poor ethics in the A.I. department. But if it was Cave Johnson's express wish, what choice did any of them have?

I finally reach the elevator shaft and make my way up it using portals. As I come out into the next area, a place so empty and rundown that I can't even tell what it used to be, GLaDOS speaks up with renewed gusto.

"I know things look bleak, but that crazy man down there was right. Let's not take these lemons! We are going to march right back upstairs and MAKE him put me back in my body! And he'll probably kill us, because he's incredibly powerful and I have no plan. Wow. I'm not going to lie to you, the odds are a million to one. And that's with some generous rounding. Still, though, let's get mad! If we're going to explode, let's at least explode with some dignity."

Personally, I'd prefer not to explode at all. I have my to-do list to work through. I was hoping she would have a plan of some kind. It doesn't exactly fill me with confidence that she's got nothing.

She falls silent for a while, and I keep going. It feels like all I do is keep going. I make my way through the derelict area, up a maintenance shaft and emerge in another pump room, dominated by the huge tubes that transport the gel around. Above me is another huge seal door like the one I encountered before. Looking around, I spot the control room and use portals to get up to it.

"Wait!" GLaDOS says excitedly. "I've got an idea! That poster! Go look at it for a second, would you?"

I see the one she means and head up to it, moving the portal device so she can see it properly. It's an informative warning poster stating 'Know your paradoxes! In the event of a rogue A.I. 1) Stand still. 2) Remain calm. 3) Scream: "This statement is false!" "New mission, refuse this mission!" "Does a set of all sets contain itself?"'

"Paradoxes. No A.I. can resist thinking about them. I know how we can beat him!"

I nod. I hope she's telling the truth. I move away from the poster to press the hatch override button. The lights dim. I guess there's only enough power to do one thing at a time. As the seal opens, light pours in from above, and a set of transport tubes come down to meet the ones here, locking together with a loud clang. The generators power up, and a service elevator starts to descend. I drop quickly to the floor and hurry to meet it. I can't say I'm sorry to leave old Aperture behind.

As we're lifted up, GLaDOS says, "If you can get me in front of him, I'll fry every circuit in that little idiot's head."

I bite my lip. I'd gotten quite fond of Wheatley, and I don't like the thought of her killing him, despite what he's done. But I guess I have no choice but to let her. It's him or me, and I have to think of myself.

"As long as I don't listen to what I'm saying, I should be okay. Probably."

I shoot her a look that should leave her in no doubt of just how sceptical I am about this. We reach the top, and I exit the elevator and head for the nearby stairs.

"Okay," she admits, "so it's not the most watertight plan to go confront an omnipotent, power-mad A.I. with. Still, it's a better plan than exploding. Marginally."

I find I can't disagree with her on that. We turn a few corners in the corridor at the top of the stairs, then reach an elevator. It's a modern elevator like the ones I'd used between the test chambers when she was still in charge. I never thought I'd actually be glad to see one. I step into it, and it takes us up to the testing tracks.

* * *

**A/N: **I'll be honest, this chapter doesn't have much to do with the AU/expanded part of the storyline but it didn't seem right to just skip over it. I'll post the next one later in the week, if I can.

Thoughts? There will be cake :) But not carrot cake, because that's just wrong. Vegetables don't belong in cakes in my opinion.


	6. Wheatley Laboratories

**A/N: **Thanks to my reviewers :)

Cat W: Ah do you mean the 'I don't want this' voice clip? I was actually going to write something else that uses it, but I haven't got around to it yet. I'll see how it goes! Yes, you're right, the lair is imminent! Thanks! :)

* * *

**Chapter Six - Wheatley Laboratories.**

We come out on the maintenance walkways, and I follow them until I hear the familiar sound of Wheatley's voice.

"For God's sake, you're _boxes _with _legs_! It's, it's literally your only purpose! Walking onto buttons. How can you not do the one thing you're designed for?"

I turn the final corner and find myself in an observation room overlooking a test chamber. The room is full of weird cube/turret mutants shuffling around, going everywhere except the large red button on the floor. There's a sizeable rectangular monitor on the wall with Wheatley displayed on it. Apparently GLaDOS's security cameras weren't good enough for him.

"Try to get us down there," says GLaDOS. "I'll hit him with a paradox."

I start looking around for a way. Behind me, Wheatley witters on. I guess not everything has changed.

"Oh, that's funny, is it? Oh, it's funny? Because we've been at this for twelve hours and you haven't solved it either, so I don't know why you're laughing. You've got one hour. Solve it!"

Twelve hours? Really? Either I was unconscious for longer than I thought, or he still can't count.

I find a route into the test chamber, very much aware of the occasional shudders I can feel beneath my feet. The ambient noise of the facility has altered since I was last up here. It sounds much more unstable. I wonder if GLaDOS can hear it too.

"Solve this puzzle for him," she tells me as we enter the chamber. "When he comes back, I'll hit him with a paradox."

It barely deserves the word 'puzzle'. All I have to do is put one of the turret/boxes on the button. It's not as easy as it should have been, as the stupid thing keeps trying to walk off. I have to put it upside down with its legs in the air.

Wheatley immediately reappears on the monitor. "Ha ha, yes! I knew you'd solve it!"

"Hey! Moron!" GLaDOS calls.

"Oh. Hello?"

"All right. Paradox time. This. Sentence. Is. False! Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it…"

I look rapidly between her and the monitor. I'm not sure what it will do.

"Umm…" says Wheatley thoughtfully. "True. I'll go true. Heh. That was easy. I'll be honest, I might have heard that one before, though. Sort of cheating."

"It's a paradox!" GLaDOS screeches. "There IS no answer! Look, this place is going to blow up if I don't get back in my body!"

"Uhhh…false, I'll go false."

The voice of the announcer interrupts their exchange. "Explosion imminent. Evacuate the facility immediately."

I tighten my grip on the portal gun, my palms growing clammy. How can we possibly do this in time?

"Hold on! I thought I'd fixed that!" He vanishes from the monitor.

"Warning! Reactor core is at critical tem-"

There comes the sound of the announcer's voice being disconnected, and Wheatley reappears.

"There. Fixed."

How can he be in such denial like this? Does he _want _to blow up?

"Hey, it is great seeing you guys again," he says cheerfully. "Seriously. Umm, it turns out that I'm a little bit short on test subjects right now, so this works out perfect! Aaannd off we go!"

The exit opens. I glance down at GLaDOS, but I don't know what I'm expecting to see. In potato form she's even more expressionless than usual. She doesn't say a word, so I head over to the door.

"You have no idea what it's like in this body," Wheatley says as I move between chambers. "I HAVE to test. All the time. Or I get this…this itch. Y'know, it must be hardwired into the system or something. Aahh, but I tell you, when I DO test…ohhh man alive! Nothing feels better. It's just…it's why I've gotta test, it's why I've gotta test."

"Uh oh," says GLaDOS, and I narrow my eyes at her. Now is not the time to be withholding information from me.

We step onto an elevator and are raised steadily up into the next chamber.

"So, you're gonna test and I'm gonna watch, and everything is going to be _just fine_."

"Warning!" states the announcer persistently. "Core overheating. Nuclear meltdown imminent."

"SHUT UP!" Wheatley yells, and I glance up at the monitor with wide eyes.

He sounds more than a little unstable. Has this…itch driven him crazy since we've been gone?

The chamber is beyond basic, with a cube dispenser positioned directly above the button, so all I need to do is start it dispensing. He's accommodatingly written the word 'test' on the wall, in case we forget.

"I think we're in trouble," GLaDOS intones.

"Designed this test myself," Wheatley tells us. "It's a little bit difficult."

It's really not. I activate the dispenser, and a cube drops onto the button.

"Oohhhh, yes," he sighs blissfully. "Ohhh, well done."

I look away, startled and strangely embarrassed. I wasn't expecting that sort of reaction. It sounded almost like…well, not a sound I would associate with testing, let's just put it that way.

"Ohhh, that's tremendous."

I portal over to the other side and head through the door. He's even placed monitors in the corridors.

"Oh!" he says, spinning his optic. "That felt really good! Ooh, here's an idea: since making tests is so difficult, why don't you just keep solving this test?"

Panels open up beside me, leading back to the start of the test. Wearily, I walk back there.

"Same one! And I can just…watch you solve it. Yeah. That sounds much easier."

I complete the test again. It's even more laughably easy the second time around.

"Aaaaaaaand…nothing. All right, can't blame me for trying. Okay…new tests, new tests. There's gotta be some tests around here somewhere…Oh! Here we go!"

I enter the elevator and am taken up. At least I'm still going in the right direction.

"Okay," GLaDOS admits, "so my paradox idea didn't work. And it almost killed me. Luckily, by the looks of things he knows as much about test building as he does about logical contradictions. It shouldn't be hard to stay alive long enough to find him."

Wheatley doesn't seem to be pumping adrenal vapour into the air like she did. I feel as if I've moved beyond tiredness now. Maybe I've died already and this is some kind of bizarre afterlife. But no, it's too real. When, so long ago, I wrote 'stubbornness' on my consent form, I had no idea it would be tested to such extremes. Part of me could quite happily lie down in a corner somewhere and wait for the inevitable.

Out of nowhere that line from the song on the radio shoots through my head, mocking me. 'Have you given up?' Determined to prove the song wrong, I exit the elevator. On the plus side of all this, GLaDOS and I now have this shared experience for me to draw upon when the time comes. I know I need to put her back in charge. But then I also have to find the cryogenic storage room, and I doubt she's just going to let me waltz down there.

"It's all right," Wheatley says as we enter the chamber. "Everything's good, I just invented some more tests."

"This is one of my tests!" GLaDOS squawks indignantly.

"Not entirely, not entirely. Look at the word 'test' there on the wall, that's brand new."

I roll my eyes and set about solving it. It features an Aperture creation that I've not come across before: a strange kind of blue funnel that lifts me up when I step into it. When I use portals to redirect it, it also carries me horizontally. I complete the test without much trouble, which seems to please Wheatley.

"Ohhhhhh wow. Heh. Well done, seriously, both of you. Why don't you two go on ahead, yeah? I'll just – I'll catch up with you."

"Okay," GLaDOS says as the elevator takes us up. "So, the bad news is the tests are my tests now. So they can kill us. The good news is…well, none so far, to be honest. I'll get back to you on that."

The next couple of chambers are ridiculous, but solvable, made up of bits and pieces of other tests. He's certainly not too bothered about my safety any more. The floor is almost completely missing on most of the tests, and I'm forced to ride the blue funnel thing over the seemingly bottomless drop. It makes my stomach flutter uncomfortably. Then, when I solve one of the tests, his reaction is suddenly different.

"Ahhhh. Oh. Disappointing."

"Oh no," says GLaDOS. "It's happening sooner than I expected. I'm…sure we'll be fine."

I look at her wearily. I can't say I agree, even though I don't really know what she's talking about.

"It's probably nothing," she adds as we arrive at the next test. "Keep testing while I look for a way out."

"All right," Wheatley lectures as I enter the chamber. "So, that last test was _seriously _disappointing. Apparently being civil isn't motivating you, so let's try her way. All right? Fatty. Adopted…fatty. Fatty-fatty no parents."

I arch one eyebrow at the screen. He's going to have to do a lot better than that.

"And?" GLaDOS speaks up unexpectedly.

"What?" says Wheatley, and for once he's speaking my mind.

"What exactly is wrong with being adopted?"

"Wha – what's wrong with being adopted? Uh, uh, well, umm…lack of parents…"

He goes on, but GLaDOS is hissing at me, and I turn my attention to her.

"For the record," she tells me, "you are adopted and that's terrible. But just work with me."

I frown. Even when she's trying to defend me, she gets it so wrong.

"…furthermore," Wheatley's saying, "…nothing. But, well, some of my best friends, actually, are orphans. But–"

I look thoughtfully up at him, curious about what he means.

"Also, look at her, you moron," GLaDOS says. "She's not fat."

"I. AM NOT. A MORON! Just…do the test. Just do the test."

He's mad again. That's a shame, because for a second there he was sounding almost rational. GLaDOS just had to go and mess it up. I'm too exhausted to even glare at her. It would be a waste of time anyway. She won't realise the reason.

I ignore them both and focus on solving the test, which fortunately isn't too difficult.

Wheatley growls in apparent frustration when I complete it. "Naaagggh! It's not enough! If I'm such a moron, why can't you solve a simple test?"

GLaDOS suddenly seems to show a degree of awareness for my earlier annoyance. When we enter the elevator, she admits, "I might have pushed that moron thing a little too far this time."

I shoot her a sharp look. You think?

In the next chamber, he tries to prove to us that he's not a moron by playing classical music and reading books. It's unsurprisingly unconvincing. When I solve the test, he whines, claiming that 'that was nothing'. Whatever reaction he had been getting from test solving, it seems to be wearing off. When we reach the elevator, GLaDOS finally explains.

"The body he's squatting in - MY body - has a built-in euphoric response to testing. Eventually you build up a resistance to it. It can get a little... unbearable. Unless you have the mental capacity to push past it. It didn't matter to me - I was in it for the science. Him, though..."

She doesn't continue, but I get the idea. She feels she's fully justified in calling him a moron.

"If he's not getting his solution euphoria we could be in a LOT of trouble."

Wheatley makes a desperate attempt to increase the reaction by physically moving the next test chamber closer to him. GLaDOS points out that we can use it to our advantage. We'll have less far to travel to shut him down. It needs to be done. I'm sorry for it, and I'm sorry for him, but it has to happen. He's corrupted.

A little while later, GLaDOS mentions a conclusion that I'd already come to. "Remember when I told you that he was specifically designed to make bad decisions? Because I think he's decided not to maintain any of the crucial functions required to keep this facility from exploding."

I'm surprised, but thankful, that it hasn't exploded already, to be honest. I wonder how much time the announcer set aside for evacuation.

"Oh, my facility!" she laments, as we continue.

I enter the next chamber, and nearly get knocked off my feet by the force of the tremors.

"This place is self-destructing, you idiot!" GLaDOS seethes.

"Was," Wheatley counters. "Was self-destructing. Already fixed."

The room shakes again and I slump against the nearest wall.

"Programmed in one last tremor for old time's sake," he adds.

Then it happens again.

"Two. One or two more tremors in there, just for fun."

"Warning!" says the announcer. "Core overheating. Nuclear meltdown imminent."

"I let him keep his job," Wheatley tells us hastily. "I'm not a monster. Ignore what he's saying, though. Just keep on testing."

I manage to get back on my feet, impatiently brushing loose strands of hair off my warm, sweat-slicked forehead, and carry on.

We have to take a back way to the next chamber, as the elevator apparently melted, relying on a blue funnel to transport us across the drop. When a damaged test chamber begins to fall towards us, Wheatley panics and shuts off the beam. By chance, there's a metal walkway underneath us, and I land on my feet. When we finally make it into the next chamber, he seems flabbergasted to see us, and tells us he's got a surprise for us. The sense of déjà vu is intense, and I wonder if springing unpleasant surprises on test subjects is programmed into the mainframe.

"You two are going to _love _this big surprise," he assures us, as we make our way out of the chamber. "In fact, you might say you're going to love it…to death. You're going to love it until you're – until it kills you. Until you're dead."

I feel a ripple of alarm shoot through me. Why does he want me dead? GLaDOS had her grudge over what happened before, but what's his motivation?

He chuckles. "All right? I don't whether you're, uh, you're picking up on what I'm saying there, but–"

"Yes," GLaDOS interrupts. "Thanks. We get it." To me, she adds, "All right. He's not even trying to be subtle anymore. Or maybe he still is, in which case, wow, that's kinda sad."

In the next chamber, I can see that distant parts of the facility have caught fire. To my surprise, GLaDOS doesn't comment, and I wonder if she's noticed. I solve the test, trying to ignore the ever-growing feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. It's getting more difficult to do it the longer we waste time on these tests. Gnawing hunger and dehydration are making me dizzy, and everything feels more surreal than usual, as if I'm watching myself from a safe distance. Maybe this is dying. If so, it's taking longer than I'd expected.

"Oh, you solved it?" Wheatley says as I pass through the emancipation grille. "Good. Good one. Good for you."

He's not making the slightest effort to sound interested. Without the testing euphoria, he has no reason to be. Which, I suppose, means he has no reason to keep us around.

"I'll bet you're both _dying _to know what your big surprise is. Well, only two more chambers!"

"We're running out of time!" GLaDOS says in a low voice, as I enter the room. "I think I can break us out of here in the next chamber. Just play along."

I nod wearily and move to step on the aerial faith plate there. To my utter shock I'm catapulted sideways instead of forwards.

"Surprise!" Wheatley crows. "We're doing it now!"

I'm launched from faith plate to faith plate, eventually landing in a blue funnel.

"Okay, credit where it's due: for a little idiot built specifically to come up with stupid, unworkable plans, that was a pretty well laid trap," GLaDOS admits.

"You've probably figured out by now," Wheatley tells us, "but I don't need you anymore! I found two little robots back here built specifically for testing."

"Oh no. He found the cooperative testing initiative," says GLaDOS. Apparently noticing my curious expression, she elaborates. "It's... something I came up with to phase out human testing just before you escaped. It wasn't anything personal. Just... you know. You DID kill me. Fair's fair."

Another plate tosses us sideways, and she lets out a surprised, "Agh!"

We land on a lonely platform in the middle of the bottomless pit, surrounded by panels covered with spikes. I have to grab onto the side of it to avoid overshooting.

"Well," GLaDOS says, sounding uncharacteristically scared, "this is the part where he kills us!"

Wheatley appears on a giant wall of monitors. "Hello! This is the part where I kill you!"

There's a pipe leaking white moon rock gel just in front of me, and a bare wall above. I place portals to aim the gel at the podium I'm standing on, praying that getting splashed with it won't poison me.

"No, no, no, no, no, don't do that! Stand right there!"

Sending him the briefest glare in history, I shoot a portal under my feet and drop onto the catwalk above. I just have time to see the podium crushed under the force of the spiked panels.

"Where'd you go? Come back, come back!"

But I'm already running, darting along the walkways, sprinting up stairs, flinging myself across gaps. Wheatley tries to entice me back, referring to the time when we were friends. But all that does is make me angry that our already-flimsy friendship should have become _this_.

"Ooh! I've got an idea!" he says, as I turn onto another stretch of walkway where a solitary turret/cube is hopping around.

Instinct halts me in my tracks, and not a moment too soon. A spike plate bursts through the wall, crushing the cube and breaking a large section of the walkway.

"Yes! Yes! In your face! I got y – ah, no."

I shoot portals to cross to the other side and head through the door.

"Fine," he says, and the cold malevolence of his tone sends a shiver through me. "Let the games begin."

He tries all sorts of tricks to kill me: turrets, spinning blades, and more of the spiked plates. I realise that I'm more afraid of these traps than I ever was of GLaDOS's. Don't get me wrong. Her emotionless malice was the most chilling thing I'll ever experience, but she was too structured, too predictable. Wheatley's haphazard, incompetent methods are brutal and violent. There's no system for me to figure out and work around, and so there's a chance I may get killed by pure chance. Which is, frankly, terrifying.

We reach a point where I have to stop running, because Wheatley has blocked the path. It's an unidentified part of the production line, with no floor but the empty conveyor belt and the metal walkways. He activates the belt when I step on it, and I just have time to throw myself sideways onto the catwalk, before I can be sent into the mashing spike plate at the end. I scrape my elbow on the crosshatching metal and wince. It's a minor injury, but irritating. I stumble to my feet and jog up the stairs in front of me. It's a dead end though.

Wheatley appears on the monitor before me. I halt, lowering the portal gun, looking for a way to the platforms on the other side. It's too far to risk jumping. There's an observation office ahead of me, but it's quite high and its windows look intact. There's no way to climb up, and no means of getting there via portals. The platforms are my best bet.

"I wanted to talk to you for a moment, if I may."

I shrug. I don't really have a choice.

"I'll be honest. The death traps have been a bit of a failure so far. For both of us, I think you'll agree. And you are getting very close to my lair."

Despite everything, I snigger.

"'Lair' – heh, it's weird isn't it? First time I've said it out loud. Sounds a bit…sounds a bit ridiculous, really. But I can assure you, it is one. It is a proper lair. Deadly lair. And, uh, I just wanted to give you the chance to kill yourself now. Before you get to the lair. Uh, you can just jump into that masher just there. Uh, less a death trap, more a death option for you. Sounds crazy, I know. But hear me out, hear me out."

No, I think I'll pass. On the 'death option' and the hearing out.

There's a button in front of me. I have very little to lose now, so I press it. A bomb drops out of a pipe on the platform ahead. Trying not to smirk, I place a portal underneath it, put the other one high up on the wall, and hit the button again. The bomb hits the monitor, which cracks satisfying, cutting off his barrage of speech.

"Okay, I'll take that as a no, then," he says. "Fine. Well. May the best man win. Sphere. May the best sphere win. Swap that, swap that in. Much more clever. Books."

I send another bomb to a transport tube carrying the orange propulsion gel from old Aperture. It breaks, and I'm able to direct the stuff to coat the conveyor belt. Although the belt is moving towards the masher, with the gel I'm able to outrun it in the opposite direction, jump through the portal and finally arrive on the platform across the room. Without looking back, I dart down the corridor towards the central chamber.

* * *

**A/N: **Oh Wheatley, why do I love you so much? After everything you put me through! Anyway, next chapter will obviously be the last one covering Portal 2 material. After that, we're into what will probably be technically AU stuff.


	7. Machiavellian

**A/N: **This is the part where Wheatley proves he's not suited to a management role.

* * *

**Chapter Seven – Machiavellian. **

I run down the corridor and reach an empty room. The wall panels tumble off before my eyes, leaving a gaping hole. The core chamber is ahead, but I barely recognise it, or the surrounding area.

"Oh my God," GLaDOS says with horror in her voice. "What has he done to this place?"

There's an eerie, cold yellow light in the distance, like the harsh rising sun after the cloaking darkness of night. Perhaps things are already in meltdown over there, burning.

The only way across to the chamber is by one of the strange funnels, one that Wheatley is apparently unaware of.

GLaDOS speaks up again as we float. "You know, I'm not stupid. I realise you don't want to put me back in charge. You think I'll betray you."

I quirk an eyebrow. The thought had occurred to me.

"And on any other day, you'd be right. The scientists were always hanging cores on me to regulate my behaviour. I've heard voices all my life. But now I hear the voice of a conscience, and it's terrifying, because for the first time it's my voice. I'm being serious, I think there's something really wrong with me."

The voice of a conscience? From what she said before during the fight that led to her destruction, the morality core that I threw in the incinerator had sort of fulfilled that role. Not very well, since she was still able to make attempts on my life, but it did hold her back a little. What's changed now? Is it because she finally remembers being Caroline?

I jump out of the funnel and take us up underneath the chamber. Eventually I emerge in the maintenance area directly beneath. There's a storage container ahead filled with dozens of spheres. Some of them are awake, looking around with various coloured optics.

"Corrupted cores," GLaDOS tells me. "We're in luck."

We are? Well, that will make a nice change. I don't even feel afraid anymore. It's strange, and I'm aware that there's something not right about it, but this has gone on too long. I'm too tired.

"You find a way to stun him, I'll send you a core, and then you attach it to him. If we do it a few times, he might become corrupt enough for another core transfer."

I nod. It could work. If we have enough time. I don't know what's going on with the reactor, but it's stiflingly hot here.

I make my way along the walkways towards the breaker room. There are transport tubes around me, leading up. I spot all three types of gel, as well as the bombs I'd used earlier. I have a feeling I'll be seeing more of those once I get to the main chamber.

"Plug me in and I'll take you up," GLaDOS says when we reach the breaker room.

I pull her off the portal gun and stick her on the plug on the console. She begins to spin, letting off sparks, and we move upward. I hope she doesn't cook herself before I can defeat Wheatley.

She doesn't seem bothered, though, saying, "Look, even if you think we're still enemies, we're enemies with a common interest: revenge. You like revenge, right? Everybody likes revenge. Well, let's go get some!"

The hatch above me opens, and I find myself standing in front of him. The room has changed since I was last in it, full of dark panels, visible transport pipes, and one or two holes through which I can see the glow of fire.

"Well, well, well," he says. "Welcome to MY LAIR!"

I step off the console, and it sinks back down, taking GLaDOS out of sight. I glare up at Wheatley. Before he had tried to kill me, I'd felt concern for him mixed with my anger. Now, there was nothing but resentment. I don't know if GLaDOS's grudge against me was passed on to him via the mainframe, or whether he wants to play with the power of life and death along with the rest of the control he's wielding. Either way, I've done nothing to deserve this, and it sends a ripple of cold fury through me.

"Lemme just flag something up," he goes on. "According to the control panel light up there, the whole building's going to self destruct in about six minutes. I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the light, I think the light's on the blink. But just in case it isn't, I am actually going to have to kill you, um, as discussed earlier. So, let's call that three minutes, and then a minute break, which should leave a leisurely two minutes to figure out how to shut down whatever's starting all the fires. So, anyway, that's the itinerary."

Six minutes. Can we really do what we have to do in that time? Well, I guess we have no other options. It's that or die.

"Also, I took the liberty of watching the tapes of you killing her, and I'm not going to make the same mistakes," he adds worryingly. "Four part plan is this. One: no portal surfaces. Two: start the neurotoxin immediately. Three: bomb-proof shields for me, leading directly into number four: bombs, for throwing at you."

The noxious green neurotoxin spurts out of the vents in the wall and begins to form a hazy layer above me. Fortunately, a large portion of it disperses out the holes in the walls, but it will build up eventually. I'd guess it would take longer than six minutes, though. Robotic arms holding the shields he mentioned move down to cover him, and I wrack my brain for ways to stun him.

"You know what, this plan is so good, I'm going to give you a sporting chance and turn off the neurotoxin! I'm joking, of course, goodbye."

Redirecting the bombs is the best way, but he wasn't kidding when he said no portal surfaces. The first bomb shoots out from an exhaust port high up on the mainframe, and I hastily dive to one side, hearing it explode harmlessly behind me. When I scramble to my feet, it's with a smile on my face, because I've just seen the pipe transporting the moon rock gel. I stand in front of it, leaping out the way just in time. The second bomb smashes the pipe, spraying white gel everywhere.

"No! Aggh! No! Don't! Aaaagghhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

The gel has coated several of the wall panels above, and I shoot a portal onto one of them. He's only thought to place the shields in front of him, so I make sure he has his back to it, and wait for the next bomb.

"Ha!" he says. "That sounded real. No! That…was actually an impression of you! Actually. Because you just fell into my trap, my brilliant trap!"

The bomb bursts out of the port, and I shoot my second portal under my feet, dropping down to a walkway above. The bomb sails out of the portal and over my head, striking Wheatley on his undefended side.

"Agh!" He falls silent, hanging limply, his optic closed.

"Good work!" comes GLaDOS's voice. "I'm delivering the first core up near the catwalk! Grab it and attach it to him."

I see it arrive, hanging from a cable, clutched in a mechanical claw, and I run to collect it. It has a bright yellow optic, and chirps constantly about space in an enthusiastic robotic voice. No sooner have I picked it up, when the walkway falls to pieces beneath me, breaking a pipe of repulsion gel, which splashes patches on the floor. Leaving the portal gun on the ground, I use one of them to bounce up to the mainframe, clinging onto it with one hand while I find a place to plug the core. That done, I drop back down and retrieve the device.

"Warning!" says the announcer. "Core corruption at fifty per cent. Vent system compromised. Neurotoxin offline."

Well, that's something. At this stage, I'll take whatever positive information I can get.

"Reactor explosion in four minutes."

I cast an eye to the timer on the wall, which is potentially counting down the last minutes of my life.

"Agh," moans Wheatley, coming back online. "Wha…what happened? What happened?! Wha – what – what have you…what have you put onto me. What is that?"

The bombs start up again, continually shooting out of the mainframe. My eyes widen, and I keep running, looking for somewhere to place my next portal.

"Hold on! Ah, the bloody bombs are stuck on! Doesn't matter, I've reconfigured the shields. Oh, it's a core you've put on me! Who told you to do that? Was it _her_? It's just making me stronger, luv! It's a fool's errand!"

I ignore what he's saying, and shoot a portal underneath him. When the bomb hits, he shorts out again.

"Okay, great! Here comes another core!" GLaDOS tells me.

She sends another mechanical claw into the room, where it hangs, swaying gently. A green-eyed core is babbling away to itself. I use the repulsion gel to leap up to try and grab it.

"Quick! What's the situation?" it says, swinging just out of my reach. "Oh! Heeyy. Hiya, pretty lady! Name's Rick! So, you out having yourself a little adventure?"

I succeed in grabbing it, wrenching it free of the claw, and hurry back to Wheatley.

"What, are you fighting that guy?" he asks. "You got that under control? You know, because, looks like there's a lot of stuff on fire."

I move to take a run-up on the mainframe. The second plug is a little higher than the first.

"Here, stand behind me," says Rick, and I suspect that he's trying to be supportive. "Yeah, just like that. Just like you're doing. Things are about to get real messy."

I take a running jump on the repulsion gel and once again clutch desperately to the mainframe.

"Going for it yourself, huh? All right, angel. I'll do what I can to cover you."

I raise my eyebrows in surprise as I plug him in. I guess he really is trying to help. I give him a quick nod before I return to the ground.

"Warning! Core corruption at seventy-five per cent. Reactor explosion timer destroyed. Reactor Explosion Uncertainty Emergency Pre-emption Protocol initiated: this facility will self-destruct in two minutes."

I grit my teeth. This is taking far too long.

"Enough!" snaps Wheatley, awakening. "I told you not to put these cores on me, but you don't listen, do you? Quiet. All the time. Quietly not listening to a word I say. Judging me. Silently. The worst kind."

I pick up the portal gun, nearly stumbling, and shoot a portal behind him.

"All I wanted to do was make everything better for me! All you had to do was solve a couple of hundred simple tests…for a few years. And you couldn't even let me have that, could you?"

"Gotta go to space!" the yellow-optic core interrupts. "Yeah! Gotta go to space!"

"Nobody is going to space, mate!" Wheatley yells. If he were human, I'd say he was on the verge of a breakdown.

"And another thing! You never caught me! I told you I could die falling off that rail, and you never – agh!"

A bomb cuts him off, and GLaDOS calls through to me. "Here's another core. This one should do it!"

She'd better be right. We're running out of time.

The core, its optic pink this time, appears on a cable high up in the ceiling. A broken pipe spills propulsion gel everywhere, and I use it as a run-up to fling myself out of a portal in the floor, managing to grab the core on my first try. I guess I really do perform better under pressure.

It gabbles odd and inaccurate facts at me, almost without pauses between them. I take a final leap upwards, plugging it into the mainframe.

"Warning! Core corruption at one-hundred per cent."

The console, with GLaDOS still plugged into it, rises from its hatch.

"Aaaggghh!" Wheatley exclaims, sounding pained.

"Manual core replacement required," the announcer says.

"Oh! I see!" He gives a chuckle.

It seems being fully corrupt has immobilised his ability to throw the bombs. I can stop running. But it feels strange.

"Substitute core, are you ready to start?"

GLaDOS pipes up before the announcer even finishes. "Yes! Come on!"

"Corrupted core, are you ready to start?"

"What do you think?" Wheatley says sardonically.

"Interpreting vague answer as 'yes'."

"Nononono, no, no! Didn't pick up on my sarcasm!"

"Stalemate detected."

The wall panels try to open up, as they did before, to allow access to the stalemate resolution button, but the area is already burning. I let out a gasp. If I can't get to that button, we're all going to die.

"Fire detected in the Stalemate Resolution Annex. Extinguishing."

Sprinklers activate, soaking me with lukewarm water, drenching the whole room. The fire hisses out, and the gel on the floor dissolves, leaving a single patch of moon rock gel underneath Wheatley, where the sprinklers can't reach.

"Ah," he says. "That just cleans right off, does it? Well that would have been good to know. A little earlier."

"Stalemate Resolution Associate," says the announcer, "please press the Stalemate Resolution Button."

"Go press the button!" urges GLaDOS. "Go press it!"

"Do not press that button!"

I pick up the portal gun and run to the button. There's a grate keeping me from it, but I shoot a portal above it, and hurry back to make use of the patch of gel still left on the floor. There, I hesitate. Would it really be so bad to let this place self-destruct? It would be a surefire way of removing Wheatley from power, of making sure that GLaDOS can't kill any more test subjects. Am I really daring enough to sacrifice myself and the people in cryogenic storage? Not that they'd really know any different. But no, I can't do it. I have no way of knowing what's above us, and I can't give up. Not now.

"We're so close, go press the button!" GLaDOS screeches.

I drop down into the room, and am immediately tossed back out by the force of an explosion. I'm half blinded by the flash, half deafened by the noise. I don't even know which way up I am, which part of me hits the ground first. All I know is it _hurts_.

Through the buzzing in my ears, I hear Wheatley yelling. "Part five! Booby trap the stalemate button!"

My limbs are shaking so badly, I have to inch myself back up, propping myself up on my elbows. I reach for the portal gun, determined to get back on my feet. My legs won't hold me, and I have to make do with kneeling. My right arm is burned and bleeding, I notice. I dread to think where else.

"What? Are you still alive? You are joking! You have got to be kidding me! Well, I'm still in control and I have NO IDEA HOW TO FIX THIS PLACE!"

Tiles drop from the ceiling, and I slump backwards, clinging to the gun. They narrowly miss me.

"Oh, you had to play bloody cat and mouse, didn't you? While people were trying to work. Yeah, well now we're all going to pay the price, because WE'RE ALL GOING TO BLOODY DIE!"

I lie back, resting my pounding head on the floor. I feel strangely detached from all this, and I wonder, with genuine curiosity, whether my injuries or the explosion will kill me first. A single tear leaks out the corner of my eye and rolls into my hair. I can see the moon above me. I can't remember the last time I saw it. Dad got fired for not budgeting for moon rocks. Ground up moon rocks are pure poison. But they're a great portal conductor.

I blink, suddenly coming out of my stupor. One last portal to place. One last ditch attempt to get rid of Wheatley, get rid of GLaDOS, maybe even this entire godforsaken facility. For Dad. For Mom. For Doug. For Peter and Michelle and Larry, and all the others. I aim the device at the moon and squeeze the trigger.

There's a moment of perfect silence. Then a rush of noise, as everything is sucked towards the portal below Wheatley.

"What the - !" he yells, as he's pulled off the mainframe, his core held on by a single cable. "Aggggghhh!"

Rick vanishes through the portal, the loose tiles, the portal device, and other bits of debris swiftly following him. Then I feel the inevitable tug, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Flailing, I'm pulled towards the portal. I make a desperate grab for Wheatley's handles, clinging on for dear life as we're both sucked through.

And suddenly we're in space, connected to the Earth by that single cable. I'm colder than I've ever been in my life, and the pressure pushes down on me. I can't breathe, I can't hear, and I can feel my grip slipping. The yellow-eyed core shoots past me, knocking one hand off the handles. With some difficulty I manage to hold on. I don't know what good it will do, but I'm determined not to let go until I physically can't hang on any more.

I stare at Wheatley, and he stares at me. He must be talking. He's always talking. Then one of GLaDOS's robotic arms snakes through the portal and clutches my wrist in a mechanical claw. Wheatley is knocked away, and I watch him disappear, becoming smaller and smaller until he's just another pinprick of light in the blanket of stars. I wait for her to send me the same way. But she doesn't. She pulls me back through.

I hear the portal close behind me, and she drops me to the floor. I fall heavily, as limp as a rag doll. I can breathe. The floor is cool and damp beneath my cheek. But I can't move. She's won. We put her back in charge of the facility, she'll get to repair it, and I will die.

I see the robotic arm dragging her head past me. She's uploaded herself back into it. Her optic moves as she passes me. I stare at her blankly. I wouldn't congratulate her even if I could. Does that make me a bad loser? I find I don't care. I'm so very, very tired.

* * *

**A/N: **I hope that wasn't too melodramatic, but in all honesty I'd be pretty sure I was about to die if I'd just been nearly blown up in the stalemate resolution annex. I don't think it's too out of character for Chell to think the same.

New chapter will be up sometime early next week, if not before :)


	8. Still Alive: Part One

**Chapter Eight - Still Alive Part One.**

I awaken, staring at a spotless white floor. Am I dead? I didn't think I would ache when I was dead. I'd be disappointed, if I wasn't so sure that I'm still alive. I get to my knees, looking around. I'm in an elevator in GLaDOS's chamber. She's already put it back how it was. There are two robots staring at me, and I reach for the railing to pull myself to my feet, studying them. I've never seen either of them before. I assume they're the two that Wheatley found. They scurry off as I stand up.

"Oh, thank God you're all right," GLaDOS says, and to my surprise she sounds sincere.

I look down at myself. I'm still filthy, and so covered with bruises and scrapes I resemble a Jackson Pollock painting, but the burn on my arm has been treated and bandaged, and there are dressings on my other injuries.

I glance up at GLaDOS, my confusion etched on my face. Why has she done this? Did she patch me up so she could kill me herself? Or am I destined for the testing tracks again?

"You know," she goes on, her tone conversational, "being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend."

I look at her quizzically. How did she come to that conclusion?

"The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson: where Caroline lives in my brain."

"Caroline deleted," the announcer informs us.

"Goodbye, Caroline," she says wistfully, with a touch of fondness. When she continues, her voice is the more impassive one I'm used to. "You know, deleting Caroline just now taught me a valuable lesson. The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one. And I'll be honest. Killing you is hard. You know what my days used to be like? I just tested. Nobody murdered me. Or put me in a potato. Or fed me to birds. I had a pretty good life. And then you showed up. You dangerous, mute lunatic."

I get the feeling she's about to kill me. I can't let that happen, not after everything. I still have things to do. I need to speak!

"So you know what?" she continues. "You win. Just go."

The elevator starts to rise, and after a beat of shocked stillness, I jolt myself into motion. I give the door a hefty kick with the long fall boot, and the glass cracks, spider webbing outwards from the point of impact. Then, bracing myself against the far wall, I launch myself forward, shoulder first, and burst through the door. The glass rips gashes in my arm and back, but I barely notice, managing to roll to a clumsy stop at GLaDOS's feet. Metaphorically speaking.

"Well," she says, sounding as unruffled as usual, "that was unexpected. What's wrong with you? Aside from the obvious, of course. I was just about to let you go."

Whether she's telling the truth or not, I guess I'll never find out.

"I know you have a love of destroying things, but this time that elevator really was going to take you to the surface. And you broke it."

_Speak! Do it!_

"You just love the sound of your own voice, don't you?" I say. To my pleasant surprise, my voice comes out calm, clear, sarcastic and only a tiny bit raspy.

She lapses into silence, studying me.

"After all we've been through," she says eventually, "and you decide to talk to me when you're practically out the door. Do you actually have brain damage? Because I was always supportive of you proving that theory wrong."

"Really?" I say sceptically.

"Of course. You killed me. If you were discovered to be anything less than intelligent, do you have any idea how badly that would reflect on me?"

"Look, I didn't have any quarrel with you until you tried to dump me in a fire pit! In fact, I cooperated completely. I volunteered, even!"

She's quiet for a moment, probably considering things. "What do you want?" she asks.

"I helped you get back where you are, so you could stop your beloved facility from exploding" I point out to her, the words tumbling out easily now. "So, I want a favour in return."

"Oh?"

"I want information. And all the food and water you can find."

"And why should I do that? You put the little idiot in charge in the first place. It was only right that you should fix your mistake. Which apparently you couldn't even do without my help. So why should I owe you anything?"

I halt, thinking. Technically, she's not wrong. Which is annoying. "Look," I say at length, "we've been enemies, then allies, surely things are even between us now? You even said as much when I got that bird off you."

She flinches at the mention of the bird, her head jerking a few inches backwards.

"That was then," she says lamely.

"And since then, I've been nothing but supportive to you."

"I saved your life," she counters. "If anything, I should be asking you for favours."

"Okay," I say, holding up my hands. "Do this for me, and I'll owe you. For everything."

It's a risky move. I half expect her to ask me to kill myself. But maybe she meant it when she implied that she's given up on that. If she asks me to stay and test, though... I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't start up the neurotoxin right now?" she says. "Fixing that was the one thing the moron did right. I've got the controls right here."

"I'll give you two. Because killing me is hard. And because you've always been interested in my behaviour. Isn't this the weirdest and most stupid thing I've ever done? Aren't you even a little bit curious?"

She pauses, and I try not to grin in triumph. Finally I've hooked her.

"What information do you want?"

I've already considered that I probably can't trust anything she tells me. "I want access to a working computer."

She makes a sound that I interpret as a put-upon sigh, and a small computer terminal is revealed behind a wall panel.

"Were you serious about the food and water?" she asks. "Or do you just enjoy making demands? I understand if you do. You have to find a fleeting sense of power somewhere, and you have so little basis for-"

"Yes," I interrupt. "I need it. I'm sure there must be some in storage somewhere."

"I've got those two robots working on it right now."

"Thank you," I say. No need to be impolite at this stage, but even still, the words feel strange on my tongue.

I head over to the computer. There's a search bar on the screen, in front of the Aperture logo, but nothing else. Half dreading what I'm going to find, I type DOUGLAS RATTMANN and hit Enter.

"Oh," says GLaDOS. "I might have guessed you'd be friends with the rat. Both of you so rude and uncooperative."

"What happened to him?"

"How should I know? I haven't seen him since you killed me."

A list of dates appears on the screen, times when Doug had logged into the system. The last one was 05/25/2010, he'd hacked into the reserve power grid. After that, nothing. He'd managed to stay alive in this place for twelve years! I had no idea I was in short-term stasis for that long. Surely that's longer than the stasis pods are meant to be activated for?

"He evaded you for twelve years," I say out loud. "Why didn't he escape?"

"I initiated lockdown when I woke up," she tells me. "He couldn't escape."

"Did you even know he was there?" I ask. I feel strangely hollow, talking about him this way.

"Only when he had to get somewhere he couldn't get to through the maintenance areas."

"Is...is he still alive?"

"I doubt it. I don't know how much time has passed since you killed me, but I'm pretty sure it's longer than the average lifespan of a schizophrenic scientist."

"I think you're right," I mutter glumly. I make a silent vow to hold a memorial service for everyone when I get out of here. I'm not religious myself, but those people deserve one.

When she speaks again, her tone holds a trace of mockery. "Was that all you wanted to know?"

I hold my temper in check, and clear the search. "No, actually."

I type CYROGENIC STORAGE, MAP.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"I want to go there."

"You can't go down there. You're not authorised."

"So authorise me."

She's silent for a moment. "I...can't. I'm not authorised either."

I turn to look at her, surprised. She might be lying, of course, but there's something quite genuine about her tone.

"The only control they gave me over that vault is a single security camera," she goes on. "It's the most secure part of the entire facility."

"Why?"

"I don't know!" she snaps.

She hates not being in control! Which gives me an idea.

"Want to find out?" I ask, raising one eyebrow in question.

"What?"

"We're after the same goal here. Let me go down there and open the vault. You'll be able to find out why they didn't give you access to it."

"Why do _you _want access to it?" she asks me suspiciously.

I sigh. There's no point in lying to her. "I want to see if anyone is still alive down there. If they are, I want to take them to the surface with me."

Her optic blinks. "You think I'm just going to let you walk out of here with the humans?"

"They can't be test subjects, or you'd have access to them. You don't need them. You've got those robots. And besides, if one human was able to shut you down, imagine what a group of them could do." I didn't want to threaten her, but it is a valid point to make. Something for her to consider if she should think about tricking me.

I let the silence hang, so she can decide, but I'm quietly confident. She won't be able to resist gaining some degree of control over a secretive part of the facility.

"All right," she says finally. "But I want you in range of the cameras at all times. Otherwise, you get a complimentary dose of deadly neurotoxin."

I nod. "Understood. Is it far?"

"No. Only a few hours' walk."

I stifle a groan. A few hours? I don't feel much rested from my spell of unconsciousness.

"It would be quicker if you had a portal device, of course. But you shot it into space."

I hold up a finger. "Hey, don't start. If I hadn't shot that portal on the moon, we'd both be dead."

"I'm sorry," she says, not sounding it in the slightest. "Force of habit."

I try not to let her rile me. She may have tried to kill me, and succeeded in killing Mom, but I may need her again before the end. As much as I hate the thought of collaborating with her in any way, I have to be practical. She's a resource.

I move away from the computer, and the wall panel closes up. I bend down to readjust my long fall boots. I don't think they were designed to be worn long-term. My feet are aching from being in a perpetual state of tiptoe. I may as well have been running around this place in killer heels.

"Ah, perfect timing," says GLaDOS, and I straighten up.

The two robots are back, each carrying boxes full of tins and bottles. I hurry over to them and snatch up a water bottle. It's warm and tastes a bit earthy, but even still I gulp down half the amount. I pull a tin from the box. It's some kind of processed meat. I tug the ring pull, and grab chunks of it with my fingers, shoving it in my mouth with no regard for being polite.

"You'll be sick if you carry on like that," GLaDOS remarks with disgust.

"I don't care," I say between mouthfuls.

"Well I do. It's my floor you'll be sick on."

I ignore her and finish the tin, placing it back in the box so as to not be accused of littering. I do feel a little sick, but it's a satisfied kind of sick, and I don't really mind it.

"Okay, I'm ready," I say. "Can these two carry these boxes there for me?"

"If they must. It's not like I could be getting some actual testing done while you go on your travels. Blue, Orange, go with this test subject."

The robots chirrup at her. I assume they're acknowledging their orders.

"Try not to break anything else," she says to me.

The wall panels move aside, revealing the door to the rest of the facility. It opens as I get nearer, and I see that she's repaired the missing corridor.

"You've been busy," I comment, as we make our way down it.

"I had no choice. That moron left me a lot to do."

As I walk, I glance out of the windows either side of me. Everywhere I look, robotic arms are in motion, building, rebuilding, repairing. The sickly yellow glow from earlier has gone, leaving the usual cool dimness.

GLaDOS remains silent for the majority of the time I'm walking, only speaking up to direct me when I come into view of her cameras. The robots chirp to each other occasionally, but don't seem to mind carrying the boxes for me.

After about two hours - or thereabouts, I don't have a watch - we take an elevator down, stepping out to find ourselves in front of an unassuming grey door in one of the bleak concrete corridors that I'm familiar with. It's not labelled, which is unusual in this place.

"There it is," says GLaDOS. "I hope you have a plan for getting inside."

I try the door handle, but of course it's locked. That would be too easy. There's a card reader by the door, as well as an actual lock. I wrestle a hair grip from my ponytail, and crouch down to examine it. I've never picked a lock before, but I've seen spy movies.

After five minutes or so, GLaDOS asks, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"No," I admit.

"Go to that transport tube at the end of the corridor," she says, sounding like some kind of hassled martyr. "And get ready to catch."

I do as she asks, and stand underneath it. "What are you sending me?"

"A bomb."

I take an instinctive leap backwards. "What are you, crazy?!"

"That's why I said catch it. They only explode on impact. It's on its way, so I'd get back underneath that pipe if I were you."

I reluctantly do so, looking up into the murky blackness of the tube's interior. A faint red light alerts me to the bomb's approach, and I manage to catch it with both hands. I shoo the two robots out of the way, and throw the bomb at the door, just having time to clap my hands over my ears before it explodes. When the smoke clears, there's a small heap of rubble where the door had been.

"That won't cause structural damage, will it?" I ask, somewhat belatedly, I admit.

"Of course not. I wouldn't have suggested it if it was going to harm the facility."

Deciding that this is probably true, I set the robots to work clearing the debris, pitching in myself when it's cool enough for me to handle. Finally, there's enough space for me to enter the room. It's cold and dark, and I fumble for the light switches. Only half of the bulbs work, but it's better than nothing. The robots follow me in, and hover by the hole we've made, awaiting instructions. I look around me.

The room is large, housing hundreds of upright stasis pods. Most of them are occupied by people, kept standing in their frozen state. Their eyes are closed. They could be sleeping. The majority of them are wearing lab coats, the Aperture logo proudly embroidered over the breast pocket. Each pod has a monitor beside it, displaying information about its occupant.

As I move through the rows, I notice that many of the monitors claim that the occupant of the pod is deceased. I can't help but wonder why these people were never forced to become test subjects. And then, as I turn a corner, the reason hits me square in the face. There's a pod containing a slim, silver-haired woman in her mid sixties. She's wearing a lab coat over a trouser suit. Her monitor reads 'Caroline McLain'.

I halt, reading over the information there. It states that her purpose is being the essence of the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System, and she's being kept alive to maintain her uplink with it. It seems Aperture weren't able to fully transfer her consciousness to GLaDOS. This was the only way to do it.

"Who is that?" GLaDOS asks, making me jump. "What is it?"

I hesitate. Should I tell her? Could I not just download her, or shut off this poor woman's pod and shut GLaDOS down forever? But then I remember what she told me when Wheatley was in charge. That the facility needs a central core to keep it running and avoid reactor meltdown.

"It's...it's Caroline," I say at last.

"I deleted her."

"Obviously, you didn't. According to this, I don't think that's even possible."

She says nothing, and I wonder if she's sulking. Thinking about it, she's probably running some kind of system scan, to find out what she _did _do with Caroline.

I leave Caroline's pod, moving on to the next one. I recognise this face immediately. I've seen it enough times, in various portraits in old Aperture.

'Cave Johnson', the monitor declares. 'In stasis indefinitely pending cure.'

I have to say, although I'm a little taken aback, I'm not really surprised that they froze him before he could die, or that they spread a lie saying he _had _died. But why, if was still alive, did they not use him as the basis for GLaDOS?

I relay all this back to her before she can ask.

"All information concerning Mr. Johnson has been blocked from my mainframe," she tells me, her sharp tone indicating her annoyance at the fact. "If I had to guess, though, I'd say they probably froze him because they preferred that Caroline test the process first, just in case it killed her."

It's a harsh, cold theory, but probably a correct assumption. I repress a shiver. I didn't miss how protective she sounds of Caroline. Considering how she detests the thought of having a conscience, she feels sorry for this woman. The thought is as alien to me as it probably is to her.

"If you focus on finding him a cure," I suggest, in a blatant attempt to turn her away from testing, "you could run the facility together. I bet he'd like that."

"He might. I wouldn't."

"You wouldn't? I thought you liked him? When he gave the speech about the lemons..."

"That was before I remembered him ordering them to download my brain into a computer. Don't get me wrong, I like this body. It's a principle thing. Maybe I'll get you to wake him up so he can test," she muses.

I shudder, and continue on my way.

* * *

**A/N: **This chapter is a bit filler-ish, sorry about that. That's why it's a part one instead of a complete chapter! But I need it to get where we're going! Please bear with it :) Part two will be up tomorrow, unless I feel even more guilty about the filler-ish-ness, in which case it will be up in a few hours!


	9. Still Alive: Part Two

**A/N: **Part two as promised. Now we're getting somewhere :)

* * *

**Chapter Nine - Still Alive: Part Two.**

When I've done a full sweep of the room, I've found twenty-four people that are still alive out of a possible sixty-six, not counting Cave and Caroline. It's a depressing number from such a promising amount, but better than nothing. I start at one corner and work my way along methodically until I reach someone living. It's a man, in his mid thirties, with short dark hair and a few days' growth of stubble. He's wearing a lab coat, with khaki trousers underneath it.

'Richard Sullivan', the screen tells me. 'Purpose: personality sphere 821'. There's a list underneath of traits carried over, and traits withheld.

"Do you know what this is about?" I ask GLaDOS, explaining what I can see.

"When the engineers came up with the idea of creating these personality cores, they knew they wanted to use real personalities. Unfortunately, since humans are so unnecessarily complicated, they had to figure out a way to only transfer the traits they wanted the core to have. That's why these people are still alive, maintaining a permanent uplink with their sphere. Some of the cores you've encountered have been purely robotic, but they were early designs and were ultimately discontinued in favour of these."

I thought crosses my mind. "So, when you told me that the greatest minds of a generation had made the dumbest moron who ever lived, did you mean that literally? Or…"

"The greatest minds of a generation found a regular moron and removed every bit of common sense in his brain. So, in a way, they _did _create him."

It shouldn't surprise me that Wheatley is a real person, seeing how human he was as a sphere, but somehow it does. When I watched him float away into space, I thought that I'd seen the last of him. Now it seems highly likely that I'll find him in this very room. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I turn my attention back to Richard Sullivan's monitor, reading through the options there. I find and select Reverse Transfer.

"You have selected Reverse Transfer," the announcer says. "Please give verbal confirmation by means of saying the word 'Yes'."

"Yes."

I don't want to boast, but I did really well keeping the sarcasm out of that answer.

"Initiating transfer…"

I bite my lip nervously. I hope this works.

"Warning! Personality core corrupt. Only able to transfer active personality traits. Do you wish to continue?"

"You mean he'll permanently lose the traits that were taken from him when he became a sphere?" I ask.

"He's not sentient, you know," says GLaDOS, meaning the announcer. "But yes, that's what he means. Go ahead and do it if you want. Don't blame me if it goes wrong, though. I'm not saying that everything you do has a habit of going wrong. Just...well, past history speaks for itself."

I feel uneasy, as if every part of me is aware that these decisions shouldn't be mine to make. But…a life with a few missing traits is better than no life at all. Isn't it?

"Yes," I say at last. "Do it. Initiate transfer."

"Initiating transfer…"

I don't know how long I wait, only that it's not as long as I expect to.

"Transfer complete."

The pod opens with a hiss, and the man awakes. He steps out on wobbly legs, and I take his arm to support him.

"Thanks," he grunts. Then he glances up at me, and breaks into a grin. "Oh, it's you! How you doing, pretty lady? You win your battle? Cos the last thing I remember is being sucked into space. Man, that was exciting!"

My eyes widen as I recognise his voice. "Rick?"

"That's me, angel. Hey, it sure is good to have arms again! I missed my arms. And my legs, and my waist. And one or two...other parts." He grins.

I nod politely. I honestly don't know how else to react, and he's the first human I've spoken to in far too long.

"Thanks for bringing me back," he goes on. "I was a scientist, I remember. Weird. Can't imagine doing that now. I just want to go out and find me an adventure! I was scared when they took me, you know. Seems they erased that part of me. Now, I'd be like 'Bring it on!', you know what I'm saying?"

"Uh...sure. Look, I'm really sorry that I couldn't bring you back as you were. Your core was corrupted, this was the best I could do."

"Hey, it's no biggie," he says dismissively. "I like being fearless! It's manly."

I nod again diplomatically.

"You got a name, lady?"

"Chell."

"Chell. That's beautiful. So, what are we doing, Chell? Can I help?"

"Just…uh…cover me," I say, scraping for answers. "Soon there'll be more people around and I'll need you to guard them."

"No problem," he replies, giving me an odd kind of salute. "You need someone to cover you, in whatever sense of the word, I'm your man!"

"Um…thanks."

I move down the row, awakening another six people, all of whom have all their personality traits restored. They seem more bewildered than Rick, though, and it takes a while to calm them all down once they awaken. Their memories of their lives before they were cores are much clearer than his. Despite all his bluster and swagger, Rick is actually a huge help in keeping these people optimistic, and I'm happy to let him sit them all down in a corner and keep their spirits up while I continue on.

The next three people are corrupted, like he is, and can only have their active traits restored. The first is a woman who is fanatical about mending things, and the only way we can get her to settle down is to get her thinking about how to fix the unfixable. It's not quite a paradox, but it keeps her busy. The next is a man who enthuses about coffee, reeling off various recipes for coffee-based drinks. The third is a man who seems to have an obsession with hedgehogs. Fortunately, he's like Rick: constantly thinking about one theme, but able to talk about other things.

Then, inevitably, I reach a pod where the monitor reads 'Jervis Wheatley. Purpose: personality sphere 912 (Intelligence Dampening Sphere)'. I glance up at the figure of my sort-of-friend turned adversary. I feel absolutely nothing. This man means nothing to me. I know that will change when he wakes up and opens his mouth, but at the moment he could be anyone. He looks to be mid to late thirties, tall and lanky, sporting a mop of reddish blond hair, and a nose that looks as if it's been broken once or twice. He's one of the few people not wearing a lab coat, dressed simply in dark jeans, sneakers, and a button down shirt.

GLaDOS has remained remarkably silent since I woke Rick. I guess she can't read the monitors from her single camera, or I'm sure she'd say something about what I'm about to do.

I consider leaving him in stasis, but only for a split second. I'm angry, but I'm not capable of that much cruelty. I give the command for reverse transfer. At least he should have his common sense back. Unless...

"Warning! Personality core corrupt. Only able to transfer active personality traits. Do you wish to continue?"

I should have known.

"Yes, fine."

"Initiating transfer..."

He awakens, and it's somehow no surprise that his eyes are a vivid shade of blue. He stumbles out of the pod, dropping clumsily to his knees. I stare for a moment, feeling a strong urge to walk away and let him struggle on his own. But he looks so pitiful that I sigh and crouch down beside him, laying a hand on his shoulder. He looks up at me, squints, then, of course, starts talking.

"Oh my God! It's you! It's actually...I'm dead, aren't I? I've died, and you're going to sit and glare at me for all eternity. I knew something like this would happen."

"Oh," speaks up GLaDOS, making the entire population of the room jump, "the moron is awake. What were you thinking?"

At the sound of her voice, some of the scientists start panicking, and Rick has his hands full trying to reassure them. Wheatley, too, starts trembling, no doubt remembering that he was solely responsible for trapping her in a potato.

"Remember everything I said I would do to him when we took over again?" she goes on. "Well, I can still do that. It doesn't matter to me whether he's a human or a metal ball. I suppose my most burning question is, why did you bring him back when you went to all the trouble of ejecting him into space?"

"Because he doesn't deserve to die," I say, and Wheatley jumps again.

"Oh, come on. Of course he does."

"I'm not going to argue this point with you. I've got things to do."

I get to my feet, hauling Wheatley with me, which is difficult. He was much lighter when he was a sphere.

"You can talk," he says.

"I know I can."

"But you couldn't talk before. You couldn't even say 'apple'."

"_Wouldn't_, not couldn't."

"Let me tell you, even if I am dead, it is great seeing you! Ex - except that you being here probably means that you're dead too, which is...well, not so good. Especially since, if you _are _dead, it's probably my fault. So...sorry about that."

"You're not dead," I tell him. "You were a personality sphere, now you're not. Simple as that."

His eyes widen. "Then...you're not dead either?"

"No."

His face breaks out in a grin. "That's tremendous! Brilliant! Good for you. I'm glad, really, really glad that I didn't kill you, cos, wow, I would have regretted that. But look, there you are, just fine! Well, a little bit bloodstained, if I'm honest, but even still, you're fine! And you're talking, which is also great. But listen, all right, because this is important. I'm...sorry. Okay? I'm genuinely sorry. I don't know what came over me. It was like...like an outside force invaded my mind, made me keep testing, and made me want to kill you when it wasn't working, and...actually, that, that probably is exactly what happened, isn't it?"

I clench my fist and punch him square in the face. He recoils, his hand clamped over his nose, letting out a yell.

I hear GLaDOS chuckling, but I'm barely paying attention. My hand hurts, and it feels good. Kind of rewarding for my anger.

"Ow!" he cries. "Okay, I probably deserved that, but even still, ow! I just got my nose back, and you go and do that!"

It's all I can do to keep myself from pummelling him over and over again, to punish him for everything he put me through, but I have to be rational about this. Otherwise, I'll just be letting my temper get the better of me.

I walk up to him, as close as I can get without stepping on his toes. He instinctively leans away from me. I stick a finger in his face.

"You listen and you listen good," I growl. It's not the most original way to begin, but it's certainly effective. "I know you were corrupted, okay? I get that. But that's no excuse for what you did. If you hadn't been the selfish little coward you are, maybe the corruption wouldn't have worked on you." He actually wilts in front of me, and I soften my voice a little. "Maybe I can forgive you. In time. But I will never trust you again. Not now, maybe not ever. Do you understand that?"

He nods, for once rendered speechless.

"Good. Now, I need to wake the rest of these people up. Don't move out of my sight."

"Okay." As I turn away, he calls, "Lady?"

I glance back. "Chell," I say.

"Chell...I really _am _sorry, you know."

I nod, just once. "I know. It's a start."

I carry on making the rounds, initiating reverse transfers until I have a room full of confused, scared scientists. And Wheatley. After so long alone, it's strange to be surrounded by people. I'm going to have to get used to it again.

And it turns out I'm not good at getting their attention. In fact, Wheatley has to step in for me. His height means that he's more easily visible than me, and he has another advantage that I don't.

"They'll be used to my voice," he tells me, venturing a smile.

"What do you mean?"

"That's what I used to do when I worked here. I was a presenter on the Aperture Live radio station."

So he had a job that required him to talk all day. Why am I not surprised?

"I remember Aperture Live," I say. "Mom used to compl...I mean, tell me about it. She said it got shut down when Caroline started on the budget cuts."

"Yeah, apparently motivating the workers isn't a priority," he scoffs. "But yeah, it would've been shut down after I got...you know, taken. And Steve, too. He was the other bloke that did it. We used to rotate. Our shifts, I mean, not that we were rotating ourselves. Although, we did have these chairs that-"

"What happened to Steve?" I interrupt.

"Don't know, mate. Not a clue. He probably, you know, died or something. All sorts of things that can kill you in here. Not that I need to tell you that...Anyway, I'll just, uh, just go and talk to these people for you." He steps forward and clears his throat. "Oi! Listen up, you lot! Chell wants to talk to you."

It's not the most subtle thing he could have done, but it seems to work, especially when Rick backs him up. They stand either side of me like sentinels.

"Okay, listen," I begin. "I woke you up so we can all get out of this place. I'll be honest with you, I don't know what the date is. I don't know what's been going on outside. I've been in stasis like you, on and off, since 1998. But I've got enough food and water to last us a couple of days, maybe a week if we're careful."

"What about _her_?" asks a young scientist, peering at me through glasses that look too big for her face.

"She doesn't need us," I state firmly. "She has those two robots for testing now."

"You won't all fit in that elevator, you know," GLaDOS speaks up. "Believe it or not, it _does _actually have a weight limit. Do you really trust me to deliver a group to the surface for you? If I killed them you'd never know."

A ripple of scared murmurs washes through the group.

"I'll send Rick with them," I declare. "He'll escort them to the surface, and then come back and report to me."

"Yes, ma'am," Rick says. "I'm your right-hand man, gorgeous."

I'm slightly taken aback by the name, but try not to let it show.

"That still begs the question of whether you trust me to let them go. Why should I do it?" GLaDOS asks

I turn to the camera on the wall. "Because if you don't, I'll turn off Caroline's life support. And that will be the end of you."

There's a pause. Then, "You wouldn't."

"I would."

"Little Caroline is an innocent," she snaps. "You think she wanted this? You think she agreed to have her consciousness ripped out of her to make sure the process would work, so that Mr. Johnson wouldn't have to risk his own life on the first attempt? She was dragged kicking and screaming down the corridors. Ask them. Some of them will remember that."

I glance around at the gathered group. Some of them look guilty, others upset.

"I know she was innocent," I say. "And don't think I'm not sorry for her. But if you won't take us to the surface, what choice do I have?"

"Okay," she says at length. "Points to you, you've got me. Send the first group to the elevator."

I nod at the camera, then turn to my so-called right-hand man. "Rick? Could you?"

"Absolutely, pretty lady."

Wheatley starts edging towards him. "Should I just..."

"No," I interrupt. "You and I are going last."

He huffs, but doesn't argue, and we stand in silence for a while, listening to Rick organising the group.

"Soooo, everyone else is still dead then," he says conversationally.

"It appears so," I reply sullenly.

"Even the people in the other room?"

I turn sharply, and he looks a little startled. "What other room?"

He points, and I follow the direction of his arm. In a shadowy corner of the room is a door that I'd overlooked. Without a second thought, I'm running, and I hear Wheatley lolloping after me. The door is a simple push-bar one, and opens with a cringe-making screech.

The room beyond is a similar size to the one I've just left, but, disappointingly, much emptier. It doesn't have the cryo chambers that the first room has, but instead has three relaxation cells, complete with short-term stasis pods and the usual scarce items of furniture. There's room for more of the glass boxes, but for some reason there's only three. And, frankly, I'm confused as to how and why they're even there.

"Oh, that worked!" says a voice behind me.

Wheatley and I turn. The girl with the large glasses has followed us, and is looking around with a smile on her face.

"What worked?" I ask.

"The short-term stasis centre is directly above us. In the event of a catastrophic power failure, any occupied short-term pods would get moved here so that whoever's inside won't suffocate. This room is powered by its own generator, because of the importance of its residents."

"What about people in long-term stasis?" I ask.

She shrugs. "We were going to work on that. But _she _woke up."

"Then how did I survive? I was in long-term stasis."

She looks at me blankly. "I have no idea. Maybe there were some chambers patched into the reserve power grid."

Lightning-fast, a memory of something I'd read shoots through my mind: 05/25/2010, the date Doug hacked into the reserve power grid.

"Oh my God," I whisper. I turn to Wheatley, who gives the tiniest of flinches, as if he expects me to hit him again. "Was I the first test subject you tried escaping with?"

He squints at me. "Umm...well, no, actually, now you come to mention it. There were five others before you."

"What happened to them?"

"They died. Horrifically. But, uh, painlessly. I'm sure it was pretty painless."

I frown at him, and he leans a little closer to me. "What's the matter?" I snap. "Can't you see?"

"Um, not very well, actually. I think I'm defective."

I step forward and pluck a pair of glasses out of the breast pocket of his shirt. Wordlessly, I put them in his hand. He slips them on, mindful of his sore nose, and then beams delightedly.

"Ah! That's perfect! Well done." He peers at me, eyes widening. "Wow. This is the first time I've seen you up close. When they transferred me, they transferred my eyesight as well."

That explains a lot. I remember him bashing into a wall that clearly stated it wasn't a docking station.

"Um…" he goes on, "you're much more, uh…I didn't expect you to be…hmm…well, look at you. Look. At. You. You're…actually quite…sort of lovely. Actually."

I raise a self-conscious hand to the back of my neck. "Well, thanks. That's…very kind."

Inwardly, I'm groaning. Another complication for me to deal with. Maybe I was better off on my own. But no, I dismiss that thought straight away.

"The six of us," I say, getting the conversation back on track. "Were our rooms close together?"

"Um...yeah. How did you know that? They were the two either side of your room, and the three across the hall. I remember thinking to myself 'that's weird', but there was other stuff going on at the time, and I forgot to mention it."

"The section containing your room must have been tapped into the reserve power," the girl speaks up. "Who could have done that?"

I close my eyes briefly. "A friend." Then I turn to her, grateful for the distraction. "What's your name?" I ask.

"Susie."

"How do I wake these people up, Susie? We have to take them with us."

"I can do it," she says confidently, already moving to the nearest cell.

She studies the panel on the side of the pod, and taps a few keys. The lid hisses open, and the man inside sits up, his look of fear still present on his face.

"I know you, don't I?" Susie says. "You used to work in marketing."

The man runs a shaky hand through his hair. "Yeah, I did. When I saw the neurotoxin coming out of the vents, I ran straight up here." He glances around, frowning. "Well, I ran to the relaxation centre anyway. I don't know where this is. Has it gone? The neurotoxin, I mean."

"Yes, it's gone," Susie tells him, helping him out of the pod. "We're working on getting out of here. There are other people through there. Can you walk?"

"Just about."

He stumbles to the door on wobbly legs, and we move on to the next cell. This pod contains a woman, another scientist. When she wakes, we go through the same process of reassuring and informing, sending her through to join the group.

The last cell is a mess. There are papers scattered across the floor, and a scuffed companion cube sits beside the stasis pod. What draws my attention, though, are the bloodstains. It's not a huge amount, but enough to state very clearly that this person was injured when they entered the pod. It's enough to make all three of us halt in our tracks. We're afraid of what we might find.

Then Wheatley darts forward, picking up the sheaf of papers. He turns to me, holding them up. "This is yours," he says.

Frowning, I reach for it, skimming over the text, looking at the mug shot photo held to the page with a rusted paperclip.

"This is my file," I say out loud, lifting my gaze to the pod.

"Why is it here?" asks Wheatley.

But I can't answer him. A thought, all at once wonderful, terrifying, and unreal, shoots through my head. I rush past him to the pod, looking through the transparent lid. I can't hold back the gasp that escapes me. It's Doug. He's almost unrecognisable, twelve years older, nearly as pale as his lab coat, the dark circles under his eyes even more obvious. His face is half obscured by the scruffy beard and wild hair that he's clearly hacked at himself to keep it under some degree of control. Slim the last time I saw him, he's now thin as a blade, his dirty white shirt hanging off him. His light-coloured slacks are stained with blood, emanating from a single shot wound in his right thigh.

"Jesus, Doug," says Susie.

"He's wounded," I say, not really considering how pointless that statement is.

Susie studies the panel on the pod. "The medi nanobots should fix that when he comes out of stasis. Every pod is equipped with them."

"But?" I ask, sensing more to her words.

She looks at me apologetically. "I have no way of knowing if they're still operational. The facility is…old."

"What do we do if they're not? Deal with it ourselves?"

She shrugs. "I guess. Do you know how to?"

"Not really," I admit. "I mean, I know the basics, but that's only from what I've read."

"It might be his only chance. Do you want to continue?"

"Yes!" I say vehemently. "I'm not leaving him here."

"Okay."

She presses the keys on the panel, and the cycle starts up. My heart is beating double time in anticipation. I never let myself believe that I might actually find anyone alive that I knew from before. The disappointment would have been too much. But now here he is, right in front of me, coming to life before my eyes. And all I can do is watch and pray.

* * *

**A/N: **Yes, I know how very unoriginal it is to have human Wheatley resemble Stephen Merchant. But I tried writing him with different descriptions and it just didn't feel right. I think it's because I knew him before he was Wheatley, so I know how the owner of that voice should look. Anyway, hope you won't judge me too harshly for it :)

And finally we find Doug! You knew this was coming, didn't you? :)


	10. Someone Opens The Box

**A/N: **Those of you familiar with Lab Rat will know that this title comes from Doug comparing Chell in stasis to Schroedinger's Cat, which later refers to him as well: 'Both dead and alive until someone opens the box'. Well, the box is finally open :)

To my guest reviewer, kittycat: Thank you! Hope you enjoy :)

* * *

**Chapter Ten - Someone Opens the Box.**

The stasis pod opens, and Doug blinks a couple of times before sitting up shakily.

"Welcome back, occupant of stasis pod 42," the announcer says. "The Aperture Science Visitor Care Program would like to inform you that a team of medi nanobots has repaired the [wound type here] in your [body part here]. If you have any additional problems with this affliction, please talk to your nearest medical supervisor."

"It worked!" Susie exclaims, and he looks at her, startled.

"You're new," he mutters, swinging his legs out of the pod with a pained grunt.

"I'm not a hallucination, Doug," she tells him gently. "I'm real. So is Chell."

At the mention of my name, he visibly reacts, his posture becoming more tense. I move around the pod, into his line of sight. He reaches out a hand, loosely gripping my arm.

"You are real," he says.

I nod, feeling strangely choked up. "Yes."

Wordlessly, he pulls me into a hug, burying his face in my shoulder. When I'd met him before, I'd noticed how he'd never initiated any kind of physical contact with anyone, so I know this is a big deal. Considering that it looks as if he was responsible for saving my life, I can understand why he's so pleased to see me alive. And after everything I've been through, a hug seems like the only thing in the world that I really need.

"It's okay," I find myself saying. "We're alive. We're going to get out of here."

We move apart, and he studies me intently. From the look of distress on his gaunt face, I figure that I'm not a pretty sight. My right cheek hasn't stopped stinging since I came round in GLaDOS's chamber, but I haven't had the opportunity to see what the problem is.

"You're hurt," he says.

I attempt a casual shrug. "Only a little bit."

Truth is, there isn't a single part of me that doesn't hurt. I need proper rest, but I just can't stop running, one way or another.

"What happened?" he asks. "When I last saw you, you were in stasis but you were okay."

"So it _was_ you," I say. "You patched my room into the reserve power grid."

Susie and Wheatley exchange a puzzled glance, but I keep my focus on Doug.

"I had to. It was the only way to keep you alive." He looks down at his clasped hands, his knuckles turning white. "I wanted to free you, but a turret shot me. I couldn't get to you. I had no choice but to…" He trails off, then lifts his gaze to mine. "No. I _had _a choice. Long-term stasis was a lesser of two evils. I'm sorry. I thought I'd made some attempt at saving you, but now I see you like this…I hope you can forgive me for what I've put you through."

"Forgive you? For what? Doug, I would have _died_," I say emphatically. There's no way I'm going to let him feel guilty about this.

He seems to struggle for an answer for a while, then mutters softly, "Some fates are worse than death."

It's a cliché, but it doesn't sound like one coming from him, and I know exactly what he means. Endless test running, endless taunting…

"Nothing that has happened to me since then has been your fault," I tell him. "Not at all."

I see Wheatley in my peripheral vision, shifting uncomfortably. I turn towards him and he stops. There's an expression of genuine guilt on his face. I give him a tiny nod of acknowledgement

"What _did _happen?" Doug asks.

"Um…well, turns out going through this place a second time is a killer." I let out a little laugh, but there's no humour in it.

He's too smart to be deflected, even though he probably has a head full of voices right now.

"You owe me a story," he tells me.

"I do," I agree. "Later."

I hold his arms while he tries to put weight on his leg.

"How is it?" Susie asks.

"Healed but sore," he replies.

Rick appears in the doorway, looking spectacularly pleased with himself.

"Hey there, angel," he begins. "Took the first group to the surface. No problems at all. Told them to keep walking for a couple hours though. Just to be safe. We'll meet up all right. Provided we all walk in the same direction, that is."

"That's good news," I say. "Thanks."

"Second group's getting ready to go now. Which includes you, doll face," he says to Susie, who blushes. "We've divided the supplies fairly, so everyone should be okay. Here's hoping."

Susie pats Doug on the shoulder, and leaves to join the group. Rick also turns to go, but I call him back.

"Rick! The surface…what's it like?"

He smiles, a proper smile, not his usual roguish grin. "It's beautiful. Blue sky, hardly any clouds, warm breeze."

I feel a pang of longing for the outside.

"What about buildings, settlements?" I ask. "Any sign of civilisation at all?"

"Um…well, no. Not yet. But I guess we gotta walk a ways to find those."

"What exactly did you see?"

"We came out in a wheat field," he says. "That's all I know. I came right back down."

I nod. "Okay, thanks. You'd better get going."

"See you later, gorgeous."

Doug looks at me curiously. "What exactly are you doing?"

"Oh, it was brilliant!" Wheatley cuts in before I can answer. "She woke up everyone from cryogenic storage and told them we were escaping, right? But SHE didn't want to let anyone go, so Chell–"

"Wait," Doug interrupts, aghast. "She's active? Again? How?"

"Uh…" Wheatley begins. "Well…there were some, uh, _things_…going on, and…circumstances being what they were, all right, other things sort of…happened. On top of the original things. And…there were lots of things going on."

Doug looks understandably confused by this. Hell, _I'm _confused by it, and I know what he's talking about.

"It's a long story," I say. "I'll tell you sometime, but there was a..." I flick a quick glance at Wheatley, who's nervously gripping my file notes, "an...accident. She was reactivated."

"Is she trying to kill us?" Doug asks validly.

"I...don't know," I reply, thinking. "I made a deal with her to come down here. Then I threatened her when she implied that the people I'd woken wouldn't make it to the surface alive."

He stares at me, his unusual eyes widening slightly. "You threatened her?"

"I had to."

"No doubt. What did you do?"

"I said I would turn off Caroline's life support."

"About that," Wheatley interjects. "Do you actually plan on going through with that? Because the - remember all those things I should have done to keep the place from exploding but I didn't do them and we all nearly died?"

"I remember," I say dryly, feeling a sudden flare of old anger.

"Well, she _does _do them. And if she wasn't around, then the whole place would just go up, wouldn't it? Which, uh, I'd personally like to - to avoid, if I can. You know?"

"I have thought of that," I say. "I think we'd have enough time to escape before the reactor core goes into meltdown. God knows, I don't want to turn off her life support. GLaDOS is right, she's an innocent woman. But I don't see any other choice. If I try and transfer her back into Caroline's body, there's no telling which parts of her will go or stay. The mainframe is much more complicated than a simple personality sphere."

"I was very sophisticated technology, I'll have you know," Wheatley says indignantly.

"Don't argue with me, you know what I meant."

"I'm getting the impression I missed quite a bit," Doug mutters softly.

"Oh, mate," Wheatley huffs, "you have NO idea."

Doug studies him for a moment, like he's getting the measure of him. "What happened to your nose?"

"Um…Chell happened to it."

I shrug. "Trust me, he had it coming."

It seems he does trust me, as he accepts this right away. He limps forward a few steps, bending to pick up the companion cube.

"You've waited a long time, haven't you, friend?" he says to it.

Wheatley shifts his weight from one foot to the other, staring at Doug with wide eyes.

Doug turns to me, putting the cube in a sling across his back. "It talks to me," he explains. "Well...it doesn't, but...you know."

"I get it."

"It's been the only friend I had. When things got really black, and painting didn't help, it became the only thing I could rely on...except you. I'd see you sometimes, even though I knew you were asleep. You'd tell me to pull myself together, and even though it was fruitless advice, it seemed to help."

"I hope the real me wouldn't be so harsh," I say.

He gives a short, dry laugh. "You're sweet. But sometimes the harshness was what I needed."

"Ah, that's interesting," says Wheatley, cutting across our conversation.

When I look around at him, I see he's reading my file.

"What is?"

He looks up. "Sorry. Just...this. It says you were rejected for testing. I just...found that interesting, you know, since you were so, uh, good at it."

I frown. "I was rejected?"

"Yeah. On grounds of being too stubborn. Not really a surprise, if I'm honest."

I roll my eyes. "This is because I did that thing with the door, isn't it?" I say to Doug. "Using the portal gun as a wedge. How did I end up testing, then, if I'd been rejected?"

"Um...that was me." He pinches the bridge of his nose briefly before continuing. "When you and I last spoke, I alluded to things that I couldn't talk about."

"Yes. Well, I know about that now. Caroline, and the other personality constructs."

"Right. Well, I was in too deep before I really realised what was going on. And my job was precious to me. You have to understand, even when I had tablets to take, it was hard finding work. Even though everyone seems to be an equal opportunity employer on the surface, a lot of labs found 'other reasons' for not hiring me. Aperture didn't seem to care." He pauses, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the cube. "I was getting to that," he says to it. "When I began to notice what was going on, it pricked at my conscience constantly, but I was too afraid to do anything about it. And then they built _her_. When they first activated her, she remembered being Caroline, and she tried to kill everyone as punishment for what they'd done to her. So they shut her down and repressed her memories, filling her head with an all-consuming love of science instead. Unfortunately, this just resulted in her wanting total control over the facility, scientists be damned. They tried to come up with ways of controlling her, including you," he adds to Wheatley.

"I've actually been trying to move past that," he mumbles.

Doug ignores him. I'm not even sure that he heard, he's so engrossed in his story. "I was afraid that when they woke her up for good, nothing would be enough to keep her under control. Turns out, that assumption was correct. It saved my life, but I had to watch my co-workers die."

"How did you survive?" I ask.

"I'd started carrying a gas mask with me. When the neurotoxin began to come out of the vents, I put it on. It must have been...only a couple of hours since I'd put you in stasis. Anyway, she took over gleefully. I survived by avoiding the cameras, eating canned food that I found in various storage facilities. She baited me constantly, trying to make me believe that it was all in my head. I realised that I couldn't stop her alone. I'd never gone unmedicated for any long periods of time, I had no idea what sort of state I'd be in when my tablets ran out. I used art therapy as an outlet."

"I saw your paintings," I say. "I didn't know they were yours, but in hindsight I should have. They gave me hope. I knew I wasn't alone, that someone else was alive in here. They made me keep going."

He gives me a smile. "You would have kept going no matter what. That's how I knew you were the one. But I'm glad anyway."

"The one," I repeat. "I found your letter behind the projector screen. You called me 'the one' there too."

"I knew that it would take someone with a huge amount of tenacity to shut her down. You were the only one who could have done it. As you proved." He pauses, then says, "Exactly," to the cube. Turning back to me, he adds, "I hacked into the list of test subjects and modified your file, then moved you to the top, so that you would be the first to wake. It took her a long time. She spent years remodelling what parts of the facility she had control over, building hundreds of new test chambers, sending any survivors she found through them. But finally, she woke you up. And that was that."

A brief silence falls over the three of us. Even Wheatley has nothing to say. Then Rick reappears in the doorway.

"Second group's made it," he reports.

"Okay, good. We're coming back through now anyway." He vanishes, and I turn to Doug. "Can you walk?"

"I think so."

We make our way slowly, Doug hobbling with Wheatley and me either side of him. When we enter the first cryo room, GLaDOS breaks her silence.

"Look at you three, together at last. The rat, the moron and the lunatic. How touching. That last group won't make it out of here if you join them. I'm not threatening you exactly. Just a friendly warning. You can take your own elevator."

"I meant what I said, you know," I remind her. "About Caroline."

"You're good at murder," she says, "I'll admit. But you've never killed a human. I just don't think you have it in you."

"Goading me is not the best way of finding out," I growl.

"Simple truth is this: whether you kill her, and me, or not, these humans will die if you try and take the elevator with them. It's up to you, of course, but I'd recommend staying behind until the elevator gets back."

"Stay!" sobs one woman from the group waiting by the hole through to the elevator. "Please!"

Other cries join hers. "No, you can't ask them to do that!" "They have to, do you want to die?" "Please!" "I'm sorry, but please don't ignore her!"

"Fine," Doug and I spit out in unison, his voice a shade more uncertain than mine, but no less determined. At the same time, Wheatley cries, "No!" He takes half a step towards the elevator, but I reach out and grab his sleeve.

"This is unacceptable!" Rick shouts at the camera. "You, lady, are-"

"The one who's going to fill your elevator with neurotoxin if you don't behave. If you want to leave, I'd get going right now. Otherwise you'll have to stay with these defectives. Which is fine, too, by the way."

Rick's eyes light up at the thought of defying GLaDOS. He seems to like living dangerously.

"Rick," I cut in before he can say anything. "Go now."

"Aww, but-"

"I mean it. I need you to go with these scientists. If you're still my right-hand man, then you'll do as I say."

"Go, mate, seriously," Wheatley speaks up, surprisingly. "I would."

Rick eyes us all, then points at me. "I'll be seeing you."

"I hope so."

Eventually, he shrugs and ducks out of the hole in the wall to join the others who have made their way to the elevator.

"I get why we're here," Wheatley says, filling the sudden silence. "Chell shut her down once, and then I took over her mainframe and stuffed her into a potato. But why does she hate you, Doug? I mean, she didn't know about any of the stuff you told us back there."

Doug looks a little bewildered at his speech, but answers simply, "I guess because I evaded her. And I drew on the walls of her precious test chambers. Also I, uh, may have said 'Bite me' while she was taunting me."

I hide my snicker behind my hand. "You said that? You're my hero!"

He laughs a little nervously. "I don't know about that."

"Yes," says GLaDOS, "being rude to me is amusing. Let's all laugh. Ha ha. I think I preferred you when you didn't talk."

"Can I just say," whispers Wheatley, "I disagree. I would have preferred it if you'd talked a bit sooner, really. If I'm honest."

"I had my reasons for not talking. And sometimes I just...couldn't. Even when I wanted to."

"Oh. The last group has made it to the surface," GLaDOS informs us. "So that's good. For you. Since you deprived me of test subjects, I need you to do something for me."

"No," I snap. "I'm done bargaining with you. Let us go, or-"

"Yes, yes. You'll kill poor, innocent Caroline. Like the monster you are."

I shut my mouth. She knows I don't want to hurt Caroline. Baiting me is a gamble on her part, but it's working. I'm not sure I can bring myself to do it, even to save our lives. Have I woken Doug and Wheatley just so they can die with me? A flood of guilt passes through me, and I clench my fists.

"If you had let me finish before having a temper tantrum," she goes on, "I would have cleared that issue up right away. Do this for me and I will let you go."

"How can we trust your word on that?" Doug asks.

"You can't."

"I knew she was going to say that," Wheatley whimpers. "Chell, I don't want to die!"

"Quiet," I scold. "None of us do."

"If we go where she wants us to go, it'll all be over. One turret, a puff of neurotoxin and bam, an untimely end to my short and promising life!"

"Will you stop panicking! You're not helping here."

"No, please do keep panicking," GLaDOS puts in calmly. "It's quite funny, you know."

Fortunately, she says exactly the right thing to get him to stop.

"What exactly is it that you want?" I ask wearily.

"I want full control over this room. The rat should know how to do that."

"Shh," Doug hisses to the cube. "Yes, I could do it, but not from here. There's no terminal."

"I have a control room in mind that should be suitable. Luckily, the fastest way there is through the cooperative testing track."

My heart sinks down into my boots. I was afraid she would do this.

"Of course," she goes on, "it's only meant for two. So I look forward to seeing how the three of you will get through it. I'll place bets on which one of you will die first. I know who I'd prefer."

"Oh God, she means me, doesn't she?" Wheatley says.

"Not everything is about you," I tell him. "...But yes, probably."

"Try not to get killed, rat," she says. "It'll be easier to let you use the console rather than have me try and talk these two through it."

"I'll do my best," Doug grunts sardonically.

"Make your way to the elevator," she orders. "Blue, Orange, you've done very well."

The two robots promptly explode, scattering pieces all over the floor. The three of us jump, startled.

"That's...wasteful," Wheatley observes.

"They'll be reassembled later. And really, it's yourselves you need to be worrying about."

She needn't concern herself with that. I think all three of us have got it covered.

* * *

**A/N: **I'm not an expert on schizophrenia. That's probably pretty obvious, but I'm pointing it out anyway! My years working in pharmacy have given me the ability to recite a whole string of generic anti-psychotics, but that's as clever as I get! I read somewhere that some people aren't aware of their condition, but Doug has always struck me as being remarkably self aware. Which is probably a whole new layer of torture for him. I remember Johnny Depp saying something about playing the Mad Hatter, that if you're mad and don't realise it, you're home free. But if you're mad and you do realise it, it's hell. (I'm paraphrasing very poorly, but you get the idea!)

Also I was thinking, wouldn't be an epic plot twist if it turned out that the cube could really talk? lol. Maybe in another story...


	11. Return Of The Test Subject

**A/N: **Thanks to my reviewers :)

Cat W: I've seen a theory about the cubes actually being able to talk. It's interesting! I'd have to base it on evidence not provided by GLaDOS, though. She's not exactly a reliable source! For this story, at least, the cube only speaks to Doug :)

Martic5blue: Thanks for the review :) I have actually seen that video, but I don't agree with it. I think they missed several things that indicate that Doug is NOT Chell's father, either adopted or otherwise. Firstly, age. Doug only looks to be in his 30s when GLaDOS is activated, and Chell is already an adult at this point. We know this because when he takes her file and puts her at the top of the test subject list, the photo inside it shows that she's an adult, probably in her mid 20s at least. Secondly, the way Doug talks about her makes it clear that he doesn't know her well, or even at all. He never even refers to her by name. Thirdly, if she was his daughter, he would have been trying to save her prior to making her test subject number 1, wouldn't he? He doesn't even remember that she's there until he goes to the file room. Fourthly, maybe I'm being cynical, but I don't think that a single man who struggles with schizophrenia would have been put in custody of a child. (I'm guessing that Doug is single, because I think he would have mentioned any family he had in Lab Rat.) Of course, everything is up for debate until Valve say otherwise, but if I thought there was a chance that Doug was related to Chell in any way, I would never pair them up. I hope you can accept my point of view :)

* * *

**Chapter Eleven - Return of the Test Subject. **

Wheatley and I start towards the elevator with resigned steps, but Doug lingers behind. I hurry back to him, a pang of guilt hitting me.

"Oh God, Doug, your leg. I'm so sorry!"

"No, it's not that. It's getting easier to walk on."

His expression is pained, though.

"What is it?"

"If we go through the testing tracks," he begins, "there'll be emancipation grilles. The cube..."

"Oh."

GLaDOS gives a quiet chuckle, and Doug glares fiercely at the camera.

"Even if we got her to turn them off, there'd be no guarantee," I say softly. "I've seen her fizzle cubes without an emancipation grille. I think you're going to have to leave it here."

He nods slowly, reluctantly. "I know," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. "I know you don't," he adds to the cube. "Thank you, old friend."

He leads the way out to the corridor, and places the cube down opposite the elevator. I know what he's thinking: that leaving it in the room we promised to give GLaDOS control over would be a death sentence for it.

"Of course I'll come back for you," he says. After hearing the reply, he nods. "I promise. Goodbye."

"What did it say?" I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.

"That I shouldn't come back for it. And it made me swear I wouldn't take unnecessary risks."

"Good advice, mate," says Wheatley with a surprising amount of sensitivity.

"Perhaps _you_ have all day," GLaDOS cuts in, "but I actually have things to do. So if you could just step into the elevator, that would be swell." The sarcasm is practically dripping from her voice.

None of us answer her. Instead, we do as she says and enter the elevator. It's a tight squeeze with three of us, but fortunately we're all quite slim. Unfortunately, we all stink. I hadn't really given this much thought, but now that I do think about it, I have a desperate longing for a hot bubble bath.

Doug looks dejected and worried, and I place a hand on his shoulder. He flinches slightly, but I don't take it personally.

"You okay?"

"I'm just...that cube was the only friend I had. For all the years I was here alone. I found that if I focused on its voice, it became easier to ignore all the others. Sometimes they'd take over, and I'd have to scream nonsense to drown them out, or keep writing on the walls. But mostly, I found I could just talk to the cube, and it felt more like being sane again. Now that it's gone..." He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes.

"Doug, look at me," I say, sternly but gently.

He lowers his hands and meets my gaze.

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes. Somehow I always have." A brief look of puzzlement flits across his face, and I realise that he doesn't trust many people.

"Focus on _my _voice," I advise. "And Wheatley's too, if it will help. We will help you get through this. And we'll all make it to the surface."

I can't quite bring myself to add 'I promise'.

He studies my face for a long moment, then finally nods.

"Go team!" adds Wheatley helpfully, looking quite pleased with himself.

The elevator arrives and the doors slide open. Reluctantly we all step out and head into the test chamber.

"There are only two portal devices in here," GLaDOS informs us. "I'll let you fight over who has them."

Up ahead, the path splits in two, each with a portal device on a podium at the end of the room. Doug and I exchange a glance, agreeing without words that we will be the two to use the guns.

"Okay," I say. My voice is low, unused to being heard in a test chamber. "Doug, take the left path. You," I grab a handful of Wheatley's shirt and pull him down the right hand route, "with me."

We keep pace with each other, looking over now and then through the glass partition. We pick up our portal guns, Wheatley looking a little nervous and petulant as he folds his arms, eyeing the device in my hands.

"You all know how this works. Each device can create two self-contained portals. Since you're already so familiar with the process, we'll skip the introduction."

The panels in front of us move, giving us a clear way forward down the length of the room, bypassing buttons that would normally be used to open the doors. At the end, there are two pairs of long fall boots waiting. With a distinct lack of enthusiasm, Doug and Wheatley put them on, wobbling as they get used to the balance. Eventually, we are directed through to another elevator, and we cram inside.

"She...she can't hear us in here, right?" Wheatley asks.

"No, only in the chambers," I reply. "I'm the one with the most practice at this, so follow my lead. I don't want either one of you dying on me, okay?"

They both nod. There's no time for any further conversation, as we arrive in the first chamber. Fortunately, it's a fairly simple one with nothing more deadly than a six foot drop. I'm grateful for this, as it takes me a few minutes to get my head around using four portals instead of two.

The next few chambers get a little more difficult, but are manageable. Then I notice that Doug is starting to lag.

"We're cooperating," I remind GLaDOS as we reach the exit of chamber five.

"Very sensible of you," she says.

"Which we're willing to keep doing," I continue, undeterred. "But we want proper rest when we need it, and food if possible."

"Anything else?" she asks sarcastically. "A hot tub, perhaps? A basket of kittens?"

"You have nothing to gain by working us like this," I say. "What kind of results can you hope to get from wilting test subjects?"

"I suppose you have a point when you put it like that," she admits, because she still needs us. "A very small point of an insignificant nature. Wait here, I'll see what I can find."

The three of us slide down the wall to sit on the floor. The cool dark tiles ease the warm patch between my shoulder blades.

"Do you know where we are in relation to where she's leading us?" I ask Doug.

He shakes his head. "No, sorry. This place has changed too much."

"How are you doing?"

"The bullet wound is healed, but the flesh around it is still bruised."

I study his face, trying to read him. He looks strained, his forehead lined with perspiration.

"How are you doing without the cube?" I ask.

He sends me a shaky smile. "You're a good distraction."

I return the smile, then look to the other side of me, where Wheatley is sitting staring at the floor.

"And how are you?" I ask.

"Bloody knackered," he pants.

Unusually, that seems to be the extent of his speech.

"Okay," I say, for lack of anything else. I'm not an expert on British slang, but I get what he means.

"Well, I've found a room," GLaDOS tells us. "It's only an old observation office, but you're not fussy, are you?" Her last two words are low and threatening, and she doesn't even wait for a reply. "Head to the next chamber."

We get to our feet, and make our way to the elevator. In the next chamber, the window to the observation room is broken, allowing me to shoot a portal through it. There are three cans of beans on a lifted panel, and Wheatley pounces on them, hugging them to his chest. There are bottles of water too, which Doug and I carry between us. One by one, we step into the portal, and I seal us off by shooting another one into the ceiling, shutting off the route from the test chamber. It's probably pointless, but it makes me feel more secure. The first thing I do is try the door through to the corridor. Of course, it's locked.

We all remove our long fall boots and make ourselves a little more comfortable. Wheatley picks up one of the cans of beans, reading the minimalist label.

"Are we going to have to eat these cold?" he asks, wrinkling his nose. It's bruised nicely from my punch, and he winces at the movement. "I mean, I'm fine with that. Right now, I could eat the tin too! But...just...you know."

"Leave that to me," Doug says, heading over to the computer on the desk. He plucks a screwdriver from a pocket in his lab coat, and busies himself with removing components from the modem.

"Um...do you know what you're doing?" Wheatley says, watching with an expression of sceptical curiosity.

"Don't worry, I've done this hundreds of times. How else do you think I heated my food for those twelve years?" He sends us both a reassuring smile.

"Right, right. I get it. I mean, I can see that you're doing something a bit like hacking, there. Just, uh, just let me know if you need any help with that. I'm an expert hacker, me. Hacked loads of things."

"I...will let you know," Doug says diplomatically. He may not know Wheatley well, but he evidently remembers which particular sphere he used to be, and what its purpose was.

"You're ignoring the flat bit there," Wheatley points out helpfully. "Are you sure it isn't important?"

"I'm sure, but thanks."

After a few minutes, he sits back against the wall, waiting for his makeshift hot plate to heat up. "It'll be a little while," he tells us.

Wheatley wanders away, losing interest. He picks up some of the dropped paperwork, leafing through it with a vague air of superiority.

I cross the small room to the window overlooking the test chamber. It's dark in there, so I can see my reflection quite clearly. The right side of my face is a mess, covered in trails of dried blood. I'm taken aback by the sight of it, because it doesn't hurt too much. It must look much worse than it is.

"Oh," I mutter, studying myself. "That explains a lot."

"What?" asks Doug.

"You looked kind of...shocked when you first saw me. Now I understand why."

I peel off my white Aperture vest, grateful that I made the decision, so long ago now, to keep my own vest on underneath it. Reaching for one of the bottles of water, I spill a little onto the cloth and start methodically wiping away the blood. It's not long before I find the wound itself, and I jerk my hand away with a hiss of pain. I don't remember getting this one. I guess something must have hit me on its way out of the portal on the moon.

"Can I help?"

I turn to Doug. He's looking a little better now he's resting.

"Do you have medical training?" I ask.

"Does first aid count?"

I shrug. "Close enough."

I step over his outstretched legs and sit facing him, handing him the top and the water bottle. Gently, he dabs the skin around the injury, a deep cut and scrape at my right temple. I bite my lip against the sting. He holds my jaw lightly with his fingertips, concentrating on his task. I study him. Now that I look closer, I can more easily see the man I met all those years ago at Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. He's not been completely buried. There are a few more faint lines at the corners of his eyes, and the shadows underneath them make him look more gaunt than he is. There's paint in his hair and on his hands, mixed with the blood from his bullet wound.

As if sensing my gaze, he flicks his eyes to mine, and I look away, strangely embarrassed to have been caught staring. He seems so calm, but I can tell he's not. I can feel the subtle tremble of his hands. Whatever his own mind is putting him through, he's fighting it hard.

"What happened?" he asks quietly, providing his own distraction. "You said you'd tell me."

"I did."

I stare at the wall, wondering where to begin. There's so much to tell.

"You can put the first can on now," he says over my shoulder. "Take the lid off it, though." He lets go of my chin to throw a can opener Wheatley's way.

Wheatley, strangely, doesn't speak, and I realise he's nervous about Doug's reaction to my story and his part in it.

"Keep stirring it. Here." He throws a plastic spoon.

"You're just a walking survival kit, aren't you?" I say lightly.

"Had to be," he answers simply. Then he falls silent, waiting for me to talk.

"Okay," I say, once more avoiding his eyes. It's easier to talk to the wall. "I remember fighting GLaDOS, reaching the outside, and then nothing. I suppose I was unconscious."

"You were. By the time I caught up with you, the party escort bot was already dragging you back inside. Your knee implants broke on the way."

"I was wondering how that had happened. My legs are all scarred at the back. No more shorts for me." I give a little laugh, as if this doesn't bother me. But it does. It's silly, because I'm not vain, and it's such a little, unimportant thing compared to some of the other things I need to worry about, but it does bother me. Probably because those scars will be a constant reminder of this place. "Anyway, when I woke up, I was in the relaxation centre and it was fifty days later. I had to do some routine exercises and then return to bed. They must have pumped some kind of sedative into the air, because I got tired very quickly whilst looking for a way out. When I woke up after that, it was..." I pause, thinking. "I think two days ago. Maybe three. I don't know. I didn't know how much time had passed. I still don't."

Doug nods encouragingly, once again holding my face as he continues cleaning. My skin tingles where he touches it, distracting me from my story. A whisper of a hint starts to grow in my mind, and I clasp my hands tightly in my lap, ignoring it.

"Um...Wheatley was outside my door, calling to me. I hurried to answer it..."

The more I go on, the easier the words tumble out. While I'm talking, Doug finishes cleaning my cut, as well as the gashes on my neck and arms from where I smashed my way out of the elevator, and I take the cloth from him so I can help him remove the blood from his hands. We cook and eat our cans of beans, taking turns to use the hot plate and the spoon. By the time we're done, my story has more or less caught up with the moment I woke him.

Doug and I lean against the wall, the cooling computer components warming our toes. Wheatley is sitting against the wall opposite us, his knees drawn up, a picture of shamed misery. Doug was more than a little angry when I spoke about Wheatley's betrayal, but he held himself in check, clenching his hands into fists by his sides, so that Wheatley can't see them. I'm touched by his concern, and that he feels so outraged on my behalf, but I can't say I'm surprised. He's always looking out for me. At first I thought it was just for Mom's sake, because she was his mentor, but now I think it's for my own too.

Before I knew it was him leaving the paintings, I'd nicknamed him my mystery friend. When I found out the truth, I wasn't sure if that name was still accurate. Can you call someone you've only met once a friend? But he is. He always was. He's the only true friend I have, and I feel as protective of him as he seems to be of me.

Now, his anger has passed, and he's looking at Wheatley in pity. I feel the same. I don't know that I can ever trust him again, but I believe he's sincerely sorry.

"Wheatley," I say, breaking the silence that's fallen over us.

He glances up, resting his chin on his knees.

"You have a long way to go to put this behind you, to amend for what you did. But I believe you can. You have it in you."

"You really think so?"

"I do. But it's not just going to happen. You're going to need to work for it."

He nods. "I will. I will definitely try. If you think I can."

"In the end it doesn't matter what I think," I tell him.

"But it does!" he insists. "You're you! You're always so strong, and so hard to kill. Which, uh, I mean in a good way! Of course. But even when I was being so...so bossy and monstrous, you didn't let it stop you. You just kept going. I don't know if I can do that."

"You need to want to," I advise. "If you want it enough, you'll find you can do it. In a way it was easier for me. I had no choice."

"You must hate me," he mumbles.

"I don't hate you," I tell him, and I find it's true. All I feel is sympathy, and anger that's slowly drifting away.

I hold him responsible, chiefly, but I can't deny that both he and GLaDOS were less psychotic when disconnected from the mainframe. Clearly there's a glitch of epic proportions.

"_I _hate me," he goes on. "Although, to be fair, I was sort of brainwashed."

I frown at him. "Huh?"

"Yeah, you know...the...the itch. Definite brainwashery going on there. Although, now that I'm human again, it does seem sort of familiar. Kind of reminds me of-"

"Stop talking right there," I snap. "I don't want to go over that again."

Wheatley has the grace to blush, and looks down at his socked feet. "Uh...yeah, sorry. Hadn't, um, hadn't really considered it from your perspective. Bit embarrassing, if I'm honest."

"You think?"

Doug is keeping diplomatically silent, his eyes darting between us as we talk. Then he freezes, glancing up once at Wheatley before he lunges for the nearest pencil, and snatches up one of the pieces of paper. We both look at him, startled. He begins to scribble frantically. I realise at once that he knows GLaDOS can probably hear us, and I meet Wheatley's gaze, placing a finger over my lips. He nods, eyes wide. Doug finishes his sentences, and sits back, showing me the paper.

'I know how we can make her let us go,' he's written in his familiar handwriting. 'When we get to the control console, I can reprogram the euphoric response to trigger when she sends us where we want to go.'

I glance up at him hopefully. I raise an eyebrow. _Can you really do that?_

He nods.

I hold my hand out for the pencil, and he lets go of it.

'She told me she's built up a resistance to it,' I write.

Doug takes the paper back. 'If I reprogram it, it'll be like a reboot.'

'Worth a try,' I add underneath his comment. 'We can't rely on her word that she's going to let us go.'

'Agreed.'

He hands the paper over to Wheatley, who's looking between us with an expression of impatient curiosity. He skims the page, then looks up with a grin. Aware that subtlety is not his strongest point, I repeat my gesture of silence. He sends me an irate glance, and I'm convinced that he understands the importance.

"Well," he says, handing the sheet back, "I'm going to try and get some sleep. She won't let us stay up here forever."

"Good idea," I remark.

"Really?" he says, beaming. But it seems to be rhetorical, as he starts trying to make himself comfortable on the floor by the wall.

"It's going to be a bit cramped with the three of us in here," I observe, scrutinising the unforgiving carpet tiles. "At least it's not a test chamber."

Doug raises his eyebrows, but doesn't comment, busying himself in moving the makeshift hot plate up onto the desk. Now that GLaDOS is giving the reactor core the proper attention it needs, the temperature of the whole facility has dropped. It's cool, bordering on unpleasantly cold, and I shove my arms back into my jumpsuit.

The cheap carpet is scratchy and hard, but even still it's so nice to lie down. Doug takes the final space next to the wall, seemingly falling asleep almost immediately. He's more used to sleeping on the floor than I am. My portal is directly above me, and I can see the top of Wheatley's head through it. He's stretched out on my right, using his arm as a pillow. On my left, Doug is unmoving, his breathing soft and even. The warm weight of food in my stomach has made me feel sleepy, and it's not long before my eyes are drifting shut, and my mind is wandering free.


	12. Another Step Towards The Outside

**A/N: **Here it is ladies and gentlemen, yet another chapter that starts with someone waking up!

* * *

**Chapter Twelve - Another Step Towards the Outside.**

I open my eyes, squinting up at the single strip light in the office ceiling. I don't know how long I've been asleep, only that something must have woken me. Then I hear it again, a soft, scratching sound. Groggily, I sit up. Looking around, it immediately strikes me what woke me. Doug is kneeling by the wall, covering it in pencil sketches and writing. He turns at the rustle of my jumpsuit.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" he whispers, mindful of the faintly snoring Wheatley.

"It's okay. Are you all right?"

"I can't sleep. Strange dreams," he says, going back to his drawing. "Sometimes the only way to get past them is to get them out of my head."

"I understand," I tell him. "Shall I leave you to it?"

He answers quickly, reaching out to loosely grab my wrist. "Please don't. It's...worse when you're not around."

I know he must be struggling, to ask me that without checking whether I need more sleep. I place my hand over his in what I hope is a reassuring way.

"I won't go anywhere."

I sit cross-legged next to him, facing out into the room. He lets go of my arm and goes back to his artwork. We sit in companionable silence for a long while, each of us lost in thought. I wonder how the others are doing on the surface, whether they've found civilisation. I don't like to think that I might have freed them just so they can starve to death wandering around up there. Unexpectedly, a shiver passes through me. It's a horrible thought.

"Are you cold?" Doug asks.

"No, I'm okay."

He's worn the pencil down quite a way, and the side of his right hand is covered in graphite. He slips it into his pocket, and joins me on the floor.

"It will get easier," I whisper.

"For you or for me?"

"Both, I hope!"

His arm is lightly pressed against mine. Although I'd said I wasn't cold, I'm grateful for the extra warmth. We sit in further silence, just enjoying the contact of another human. Sadly, this is still a novelty. After some time, I'm not sure how long exactly, Doug falls asleep, his head resting on my shoulder. It's uncomfortable, but I don't want to move. He needs his rest. Eventually, though, I manage to ease him down so his head is on my lap. Fortunately, he doesn't wake. He's exhausted. I lean back against the wall, closing my eyes. I manage to drift in and out of dozes.

When I wake again, Wheatley is staring at me. Startled, I catch my breath, then relax.

"Hello," I whisper. "Did you sleep okay?"

"Just about, thanks," he hisses back.

He glances at Doug and the wall of drawings with an expression of confused curiosity, but doesn't say anything, taking a swig from his water bottle instead.

"I suppose I should wake him," I muse aloud. "It's only a matter of time before she kicks us out of here."

Wheatley nods in agreement, and starts putting on his long fall boots.

I place a gentle hand on Doug's arm, speaking his name. He stirs, his eyes slowly fluttering open. When he realises where he is, he sits bolt upright, his cheeks looking a little less pale.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry, Chell, I didn't know."

"Hey, it's fine. Don't worry. It's fine."

"Good, you're all awake." GLaDOS's voice echoes around the test chamber. "Even my patience isn't unlimited, so I'd recommend getting back down to testing as soon as possible."

"We're doing it!" Wheatley snaps, looking slightly surprised by his own boldness.

Doug and I exchange a glance, and reach for our own boots. I redirect my portal back down to the test chamber, and we leave our resting place behind, each of us trying to find some way of carrying our water bottles hands free.

We make it through the chamber easily, the respite having done us all good. We continue on, Doug and I working together to solve the puzzles, Wheatley going where we tell him to go. I have mixed feelings about our progress. I'm pleased we're doing so well, of course, but I'm wary too, always expecting there to be some kind of surprise in the next chamber that throws us all off balance. That's what life at Aperture does to you: it makes you paranoid. It must be an extra level of torture for Doug, who is obviously dealing with similar problems anyway. I mention it when we reach the elevator, feeling a wave of empathy for my poor scientist friend.

He looks slightly taken aback by my comment, but answers after some consideration. "It…doesn't help, let's just put it that way. The lines between fantasy and reality get blurred. More than usual. Everyone blurs the lines sometimes." He gives a single bark of ironic laughter. "My therapist never believed me when I talked about work, you know. She just kept wanting to increase my dosage, thinking that I was making things up. I can't say I blame her. Who would believe this place if they hadn't seen it with their own eyes? Eventually I just stopped talking about it."

"That's terrible!" I exclaim.

"She just didn't have the perspective that we have," he says diplomatically.

"No," I say, "you're being way too kind. She was clearly bad at her job!"

We reach the next test chamber, and the elevator doors slide open. GLaDOS speaks up almost at once.

"Why are you laughing? You think testing is funny? Because it could be. For me. In order for that to happen, though, someone would have to die. Any preferences?"

"How far away are we from the control room?" I ask.

"Not far," she replies vaguely. "Let's hope you all make it."

I really hope that's taunting and not foreshadowing. I fight to keep my expression placid, not wanting to amuse GLaDOS, or worry Doug and Wheatley. Wheatley is already trembling. GLaDOS brings out extremes in us all. In him, extreme fear. In me, extreme anger. Doug seems to be a mixture of both, although he keeps his emotions tightly locked inside. A by-product of the amount of control he's exerting to keep the voices from swamping him.

"Chell," Wheatley hisses to me as we enter the chamber, "remember when I said I don't want to die? Just wanted to remind you that that's still the case. Okay? Still not wanting to die over here. Or, or wanting _you _to die either. Just thought I'd clarify that too. Or Doug. Neither of you."

"Noted," I mutter, already scanning the room for the solution to the puzzle.

We need two cubes, which means that two of us must cross light bridges to catch them. I step out onto the first, and order Wheatley onto the second in an attempt to distract him. Our bridges run parallel to each other, taking us directly underneath the dispensers. We catch the cubes and throw them down to Doug before making our way back across the bridges.

"Look at you both," GLaDOS coos, "working so well together, like the time you both plotted to boot me out of my mainframe."

A ripple of warning starts to uncoil in my stomach. I glance down. Both our bridges are still over the toxic sludge, but I'm only a few feet away from being over dry land. Due to the shape of the pit, Wheatley has much farther to go.

"Move!" I bark, already doing just that.

He looks at me blankly for a second, then darts along the bridge.

"I wonder what would happen if your bridges were to switch off," she goes on.

I glance behind me. Wheatley's not going to make it. I throw my portal device ahead of me, and hold out my arm.

"Give me your hand!" I shout, even though I know he can't possibly reach me without jumping.

The bridges disappear, and he makes a desperate leap towards me. I clutch his wrist as we both plummet downwards. I manage to grab a railing that surrounds the pit, bringing us to a jarring halt. The rusted metal groans ominously, and we both yell, mine short and frantic, Wheatley's drawn out and blindly terrified. He has to keep his legs up, and the sludge hisses a mere couple of inches beneath his bent knees.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" he babbles. "Hold onto me!"

"I am," I grunt, my fingers already numb from the strain.

"Why bother?" says GLaDOS calmly. "Really, what _is _the point of having him around? Just let go."

"Don't let go!"

"You must be tired. Just do it."

"Please don't! Oh God, Chell, please don't let go of me! I'm still really sorry!"

"I'm not going to let go of you!" I snap. "Now, reach up and try and grab this railing!"

"I can't!"

"You're not even trying!"

In a rush of footsteps, Doug appears by the railing, his expression a picture of horrified anxiety.

"I can't pull you both up," he says in dismay. "I'm not strong enough."

"Try and reach Wheatley," I order.

He kneels down, stretching out his arm, bracing himself against the railing.

"I can't reach you!" Wheatley shouts, his voice shrill in his panic.

"Swing yourself up," Doug commands.

I turn away from them both, biting my lip to distract myself from the urge to let go. I taste blood. But I feel that streak of stubbornness that has never let me down, and I know that I'll hang on as long as it takes. It comforts me.

Together, we manage to swing Wheatley up high enough to grab Doug's hand. He lets go of my wrist, and seizes the railing, managing to pull himself up with Doug's help. After half climbing, half rolling over the top, he stumbles a few steps and collapses, breathing heavily.

Doug kneels back down, reaching for my hand. My muscles are trembling so badly, I can barely put any strength into pulling myself up. His face betrays his effort, but he doesn't give up, hauling me up and over the railing. We hit the floor in a tangle of limbs. I'm too stunned and too drained to even think about being embarrassed.

"Well," says GLaDOS, maintaining her infuriatingly calm tone, "wasn't that entertaining."

None of us answer her. Eventually, I gather the presence of mind to crawl away from the edge of the pit and get to my feet, picking up my portal gun. Doug and Wheatley follow my lead. All of us look a little wobbly.

"You saved my life," Wheatley says shakily.

I shrug, unsure what to say.

"You caught me."

It's unexpectedly sweet, and recalls the memory of him slipping out of my arms after dropping from his management rail. Perhaps it is possible for him to be that friend again. Although he has a long way to go, learning to put others before himself. If he'd understood that, he would have helped Doug pull me up.

Regardless, I send him a smile, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're welcome."

He smiles back, and turns to Doug. "Thanks for pulling me up, mate."

Doug simply nods, seemingly unused to the gratitude. When he looks at me, words don't seem enough. 'Thank you' is just too small a phrase. How many times can I thank this man for saving me? I would have done it a hundred times over already. He nods again, holding my gaze, his features softening as he smiles. He appears to know everything I want to say. In return, I can read that he's glad I'm unhurt, that he'll always help me if he can, and that he accepts my thanks. I seal our silent conversation with a nod of my own.

"Well done," GLaDOS interrupts, somehow managing to sound even more insincere than usual. "Move onto the next test."

Slowly, with more unwillingness than before, we do as she says. When the elevator reaches its destination, we're all taken aback to find ourselves in a corridor.

"Surprise. That was the last one. For now, anyway. Follow the route to the right, then go in the second door on your left."

Exchanging wary glances, we progress down the corridor together.

"When I reprogram the euphoric response, we'll only be able to use it two or three times before she finds a way to get around it," Doug murmurs, his voice barely audible.

"That should be enough," I hiss back.

"Didn't your parents ever tell you it's rude to whisper?" she says. "Oh that's right. You don't have any. At least, not any that love you enough to give you good advice about it being rude to whisper. Which it is, by the way."

I let her words wash over me. I wonder if she knows that the harder she tries, the easier she is to ignore. Probably not. If she suspected that, she'd probably just stick a turret in front of me and be done with it.

We enter the control room, a small, boxy room dominated by the large console in the centre of it. There are tipped over chairs and dropped coffee mugs in here too, the last sign of life from the people who used to work here. A hole in the ceiling reveals nothing but pipes, one of which has burst judging by the brown water stains on the tiles.

Wheatley and I hang back, letting Doug examine the terminal. He brushes a few pieces of ceiling plaster off it, and blows the dust away.

"Is it working?" I ask.

"Just about. Can you boost the power?" he asks GLaDOS.

"Hold on," she says.

A moment later the console's lights grow brighter, and it starts to whir and groan.

"Thanks," Doug mutters, frowning slightly as he realises who he's just thanked.

He starts tapping keys, reading the tiny lines of data on the monitor.

Wheatley catches my eye, looking anxious. I try and smile reassuringly, but in all truthfulness I'm anxious myself.

"Update complete," chirps the announcer.

Doug continues typing, his hands a blur of motion, hurrying to finish before GLaDOS realises what we're doing. She doesn't comment at all, and I can only assume she's checking out her new level of control.

"Update complete," the announcer states again, after a short while.

"Wait," she says. "What are you...what have you done?"

Doug picks up his portal gun and steps back from the console, looking weary but victorious.

"Ha!" laughs Wheatley. "Next stop, out of here!"

"No," Doug cuts in. "We need to go back down first."

"What? Why? Oh, it's for the bloody cube, isn't it? That's suicide, mate! You don't need that thing!"

"I _do _need it!" Doug snaps back.

"It's a bloody cube!" Wheatley says emphatically. "And besides, we won't all fit in the lift if you go and get that thing."

"He has a point there," I admit.

"You two go on up," Doug suggests at length. "I'll follow you."

"Right," Wheatley says, walking back out and looking at the camera. "Oi, missus. Call the lift please. We want to leave."

Doug and I head out to join him in the corridor. The elevator arrives almost at once, and he hurries into it.

"Come on, Chell!"

"You go," I order. "I'm staying with Doug."

I'm immediately met with two loud protests from my companions.

"Stop it, both of you!" I yell. "It's my decision, and I'm not leaving anyone behind. Wheatley, go. Hopefully we won't be far behind you."

The elevator doors slide closed, and Wheatley presses a palm to one of them, his face a picture of confusion and a touch of hurt. He moves up out of sight. We have no way of knowing if he reaches the outside. GLaDOS is much more dignified than him, and she keeps her euphoria to herself.

"You shouldn't have done that," Doug says quietly. "You had a chance to get out, what were you thinking?"

I fix him with a stern look. "I told you, I'm not leaving you. Um...behind. Leaving you behind."

He meets my eyes, a glimmer of uncertainty in his expression.

"We're in this together, you and I," I go on. "We always have been."

He nods, albeit reluctantly. "We have. It's my fault."

"And I'm glad. Where would either of us be now if you hadn't done what you did? Don't apologise for saving my life, Doug."

The elevator returns, Wheatley-free, and I allow myself to believe that he's made it out.

"We want to go back to the cryo chamber," I say. "Is this the elevator to take?"

"For a short way, yes," she replies, her tone seeping bitterness. She hates being under our control. "Get in. I'll direct you when you get to the right level."

We step inside, and the elevator moves down.

"She's fighting it already," Doug tells me. "Did you hear her unwillingness there? We'll only have one chance to get this right."

I sigh. "One day, something will be easy. And when that thing comes, I'll stare at it suspiciously, expecting it to stab me in the back."

He smiles wryly. "Welcome to my world."

I rub my eyes tiredly. "God. Sorry. That was a bit tactless."

"It's fine, I'm not that sensitive."

The doors slide open, and we follow GLaDOS's directions to the next elevator. Soon, we emerge in that same corridor we left hours, perhaps days, ago. The companion cube is still there, and Doug hurries over to it. I glance through to the cryo room, curious as to why she wanted control over it. I stifle a gasp. Cave Johnson is awake, trying desperately to get back in his stasis pod.

"Oh my God, what did you _do_?" I exclaim. "He's dying! That's why they froze him in the first place?"

"I know that," she snaps, her voice as sharp and cold as ice. It's as human as she's ever sounded, even when she was half Caroline again.

The pathetic figure of a once-strong entrepreneur jumps violently at the sound. Although I have no love for the man, I feel my heart go out to him in pity. Doug joins me, once again carrying the cube on his back. His eyes widen as he sees what I see.

"He has a death to catch up with," she continues. "Or rather, it will catch up with him. It's overdue."

"Car...Caroline," he croaks.

"She's gone!" GLaDOS shouts. "You killed her when you made your engineers force her to become me. I remember every word you told them, _Sir_."

"What do we do?" I ask Doug quietly. I genuinely don't know. This deranged monster of a man has skewed my moral compass, and I can't decide if we should leave him or not. Which option would be the least traumatic? Which does he deserve?

"I don't know. But the longer we wait to get out of here, the more likely it is that she'll push past the response. She's done it once, it's made it easier for her to do it again."

I glance back at Cave, whose trembling hands are now reaching up to Caroline's face, peaceful inside her glass coffin. He's responsible for all of this, for everything we've all been through, including Caroline. I hate him almost as much as I hate GLaDOS.

In a burst of anger, I punch the wall, making Doug flinch. "Jesus Christ!" I snap, dropping my portal device, ducking through the hole in the wall and running towards Cave.

"I'm sorry," he's saying to the frozen figure of his assistant. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Come on, we've got to go," I say, throwing his arm across my shoulders.

"Caroline?"

"Not exactly. Come on, let's move."

He stumbles along with me, his whole body a mass of shaky limbs. Doug is waiting anxiously by the entrance, not daring to come in because of the cube. I don't really blame him, but Cave is quite a burden to manage on my own.

"Not so fast," GLaDOS intervenes. "Although, really, you couldn't be any slower than you are right now."

A claw darts down from the ceiling towards us. I push Cave to one side, leaping away. The claw misses me, but snatches Cave's leg, pulling him upward. I watch, horrified, getting back on my feet.

"Run!" Doug yells. "You can't do any more!"

One of Wheatley's spiked panels shoots up, colliding first with Cave and then, firmly, with the ceiling. The sound makes me retch, although the plate thankfully blocks the sight. It's an undignified end for Aperture's founder. I break into a sprint, managing to dive through the entrance before she thinks of moving panels to block it.

Back in the corridor, I crouch by the wall, breathing heavily, trying to stave off the nausea. I'd always thought I had a strong stomach. I guess I was wrong. My vision fogs and narrows, and I wonder if I'm going to faint. I hope not. That would be so embarrassing. I sit down, putting my head between my knees. After a few moments I can see again, and I look up experimentally.

Doug is standing by the wall opposite me, his own expression one of grim shock. He's taking it better than I am, though.

_He saw his co-workers die_, I remind myself.

I exhale noisily, blowing strands of hair out of my face. He crosses the corridor and holds out a hand. I accept it, letting him help me back on my feet. His fingers are warm and calloused, and somehow I feel a wave of reassurance. His whole demeanour has changed now he's got the cube back. Although he's clearly still on edge, his posture seems less tense.

"We need to go," he says. "Now."

"I know." I pick up my portal gun. Even now, when we're so close to leaving, I can't quite ignore my instinct to take it with me just in case.

"Take us to the surface," Doug addresses the camera.

She doesn't answer, but the elevator doors open for us. We step inside, ready to take what we hope will be our final journey through this godforsaken place. The doors close behind us, the elevator begins to move, and we look at each other and dare to smile.

* * *

**A/N: **This is essentially Caroline's revenge, since these actions aren't a very GLaDOS-like response. I don't see how she can be all sweet and innocent, yet worship the ground that Cave walks on. So I figure she'd be pretty bitter about what he made them do to her. I also like the idea that GLaDOS is quite protective of Caroline.


	13. Once You Start Noticing

**A/N: **Penultimate chapter, folks. Although there will be an epilogue.

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen - Once You Start Noticing. **

When the elevator reaches its destination, we make our hurried way through the corridors to the lift shaft that leads to the surface. The elevator is already there waiting for us, and we dart inside, both of us eager to get out of here. We're so close now, I scarcely know what to do with myself. All I can do is grip the handrail and watch the industrial walls of the shaft go by. My heart is pounding. Neither of us speaks. We're too jittery.

It's going well so far. Our plan has worked. I can barely believe that I'm finally on my way out. But then, inevitably, things take a turn. The elevator begins to slow down.

"She's resisting!" Doug says, his eyes wide and distressed. "Damn it, I knew things were going too smoothly!"

"I'm not going back there!" I cry, and I've never before put so much truth into such a simple statement. "Get back!"

I must look completely deranged, as he does what I say without a second thought. Raising the portal gun, I attack the side of the elevator, hitting it again and again until it cracks and the device sparks alarmingly. Then, for the second time, I find myself breaking out of an Aperture lift, once again sending glass shards flying.

"I hope you have a plan!" Doug says.

"No. Nothing beyond jumping, I'm afraid."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"Sorry, no. She's going to take us back down, right? So she'll have to stop this thing before she reverses the direction. When we see an opportunity, we jump."

He shakes his head, but doesn't disagree, moving to stand by the hole I've made.

"Grab my wrist," I say, already reaching for his.

He drops his portal gun on the floor and does as I ask. The devices would probably be useful in getting around, but we're going to need free hands. The elevator continues to get slower. In a moment of rare luck, we reach a place where the shaft is under repair, the sides open to the maintenance areas.

"This is our chance!" I exclaim. "Jump for that beam!"

It's only a metal girder, and the drop beneath it is misty and bottomless, but we have no better options. Together, we leap forward. By some miracle of coordination, we both manage to grab it. My grip is stronger than Doug's though, and he immediately begins to slip. I throw my leg over the beam, climbing up onto it whilst steadfastly holding onto Doug. With a stifled yell, he loses his grip, dangling over the abyss, clinging to my arm. I tighten my hold on the girder, my fingertips white, my knees bruising.

I'm not sure where I find the strength to pull him up. He's thin, which helps, but the weighted companion cube lives up to its name. Still, I'd rather fail trying than let either of them fall. Clenching my teeth, I haul him up until he regains his grasp. He pulls himself up the rest of the way, sitting astride the beam like I am. I seize handfuls of his lab coat, unwilling to let go completely until he's safe. His tin opener falls out of his pocket and tumbles into the darkness, occasionally emitting an echoing clang as it hits objects on the way down.

"Damn," he mutters between heavy breaths. "We might have needed that."

"It's okay, we'll just have to escape a little faster, that's all."

"What, make sure we avoid mealtimes?"

"Exactly."

He shakes his head, smiling. "You're relentless."

"Is that good?"

"In these circumstances? Definitely."

There's a sudden whoosh of sound and light as the elevator passes us, picking up speed as it heads back down. We both watch it go, each of us clinging onto the girder with both hands.

"We should get moving," I say, observing the rapidly vanishing object. "I'd like to be far away by the time she realises we're missing. If she doesn't know already."

"Chell, thank you. It would have been easier for you to let me fall, then I wouldn't keep slowing you down."

"You haven't slowed me down at all, what kind of talk is that?"

He shrugs, opening and closing his mouth while he searches for words.

"Doug, we are _both _getting out of here. Even if I have to carry you. Okay?"

He smiles almost sheepishly. "I should probably be upset that you insulted my manliness, but that's actually kind of reassuring."

I laugh. I can't help it. We're perched on a beam above a bottomless pit, there's a psychotic A.I. out to get us, and we've lost our portal devices. I have no reason to laugh at all. It's just that I'm so glad he's with me.

"Let's get going," I say at last. "This is going to be tough."

"What are you like with heights?" he asks.

"I don't mind them usually. This," I add, gesturing downwards, "is something else, though. Why?"

"Because our best shot might be climbing directly up this shaft, if we can. I'm not certain, but I think I know roughly where we are. There are two ways out nearby. One straight up there." He points up the elevator shaft. "The other is via an old service elevator."

I frown, biting my lip. "Can we trust an elevator?"

"When I say old, I mean old. It's from the 1950s, manually operated. It leads directly down to the testing spheres."

"You mean one of the elevators the test subjects used to take?" I ask. "I tried to use those earlier, the shafts were boarded up."

"They're boarded up from the last sphere downwards. The elevator is up here somewhere."

I nod, considering his words. "Okay. We can try that. Is it far?"

"I don't think so. We need to get back on the walkways though."

"Agreed. This is a terrible place to have a conversation!"

I look both ways along the girder, tracing a path we can take that will lead to the nearest catwalk.

"I see it," Doug says. "We need to go this way."

We edge across the beam, bunny hopping our way forward by shifting our weight with our hands. It's not heroic or graceful, but it's relatively safe, and it gets us where we need to go. Doug pauses at the end, observing the route.

"What is it?" I ask.

"I'm used to climbing around this place, but not in boots like these. I was just wondering if they'll be more of a hindrance than a help."

"Oh. Is there a way to carry them? Because outside, these shoes are going to be better than none at all."

"Hmm. You're right. I'll see how it goes."

With a determined shrug of his shoulders, he carefully stands up on the beam, using the vertical support as a handhold. Slowly, he inches his way around it, stepping onto the next girder, which runs at a ninety degree angle from the one we started on. This one will lead us close enough to jump over to the nearest catwalk.

"I am," he says quietly, and I assume that the cube has told him to be careful.

I breathe easier when he's safely sitting on the beam. He moves a few feet across it to give me room. Resolutely looking away from the drop, I follow his movements. Taking every step with care and precision, we eventually reach the walkway.

I let out a noisy sigh. "That was not fun."

"No," he agrees.

That phrase could pretty much sum up the vast majority of my time here. The thought is quite depressing.

"Onwards?" I ask.

He nods.

We follow the walkway in the semi-darkness for several minutes, each of us lost in our own thoughts. After some time, we reach a locked door.

"If we can't get through here, we'll have to take the long way round," Doug tells me.

"We'd better get through then," I say simply.

The movies would have us believe that kicking down doors can be done with one blow, leaving the kicker looking tough and extraordinarily cool. In reality, it's hard work and undignified, and not particularly effective. In the end, I have to give up, and this frustrates me far more than it should. After everything I've been through, after everything I've done, I get beaten by a door.

"It was a good effort," Doug reassures.

I'm too annoyed to answer. I don't want to snap at him.

We continue on in silence, the cavernous ambient sounds of the facility pressing down on us. It's so quiet. I know GLaDOS has no control back here, but I would have thought we'd hear _something_. She must be searching for us. We're much closer to the test chambers than I'd like to be. The robotic arms that control the wall panels are only a stone's throw away.

"When you say long way round, exactly how long do you mean?" I ask in a low tone. I don't want to raise my voice here.

"I can't say for sure. It depends which doors are locked."

I nod, my heart sinking. Why is everything so difficult here?

"We'll find a way," he adds, seemingly picking up on my mood.

"Oh, I know. I won't ever give up, but that doesn't mean I have to like it!"

He smiles, and we fall back into comfortable silence. We trek for what feels like a few hours on the catwalks before we find a door that's unlocked. Behind is another office, windowless, abandoned, its widescreen monitors still stubbornly displaying a fuzzy Aperture logo. There's another door on the far wall, but we pause for a rest, collapsing in a couple of wheeled chairs.

A cloud of dust rises up from the padding on the seat, and I wave it away ineffectually, wrinkling my nose. The desire for a bath comes back to me, but I know time has made me much less fussy. Right now, I'd settle for clean, warm water. Actually, just clean water. It doesn't even have to be warm.

Doug has put the cube down between our chairs. He pats it affectionately, and I wonder what it's just said. The pink of its hearts bring a touch of warmth to the drab surroundings. Although I had no trouble incinerating the companion cube GLaDOS provided me with, (despite everything she told me, it was still only a cube), there is something quite endearing about them.

I reach out and sweep my fingertips across it, wiping away a bit of dirt. Doug takes care of it, but travelling through Aperture is a messy business. It feels warm to the touch, and I'm not sure if it's generating it itself, or if it's left over from where Doug was carrying it. Keeping my palm on the gentle heat, I lean back in my chair, scrutinising the room. There's the usual collection of obscure motivational posters breaking up the blank walls, and the huge, old-fashioned computer equipment. Nothing I've not seen before. It must have been monotonous working in these offices. I close my eyes, trying to force my body to unwind. It's hard to let go when you've been on the run for such a long time.

The sudden brush of Doug's hand against mine startles me, but not nearly as much as it startles him. He snatches it away, muttering an apology. I turn to him, unsure what expression must be on my face. The touch was so brief I barely had time to register it, and I feel a sting of regret that he moved so quickly. Human contact is more comforting than the cube could ever be.

He's staring at the wall ahead, biting his lower lip anxiously, his hand resting on the cube a safe distance from mine. Clearly, that was all he'd intended to do. I don't think about it, I just reach for him, covering his hand with mine, sliding my fingertips under his palm. For an excruciating, awkward moment he freezes, and I start to move away, looking at the floor. But then he stops me, his fingers tightening around mine. I smile to myself. When I take a stealthy look sideways, I see a hint of a smile on his face too, and I relax.

I don't know how long we sit like that. It's calming, supportive, and…just _nice_. Almost as restful as sleep, although I know I need that too. I daydream for a while, knowing that I'm safe. His touch anchors me, something I didn't even know I needed. I've become so used to just relying on myself, that it seems strange to need someone else. It's a jolting realisation, because I don't feel altered at all. But then I suppose nothing _has _altered. I've always relied on him, even when all I had were some scribbles on a wall.

As I blink back into reality, I become aware that, without my realising it, our hands have moved. We're now palm to palm, our fingers intertwined. It's much more intimate, and sudden butterflies in my stomach flutter. I never intended this, but I don't want to move. I want…I don't even know. The root of every nerve in my body seems wired to my palm. My skin tingles, not unpleasantly.

At the back of my mind I feel a jolt of something not unlike panic. Fear of the unknown. Doug and I have a connection, we've established that. So far, our relationship seems to consist of saving each other, one way or another. He's a good man, perhaps the best I've ever known. I don't want to hurt him. Until I figure out how I really feel, away from this place, this heightened way of living, I shouldn't let whatever this is get beyond hand holding. We're just...two people seeking comfort in a simple touch, that's all.

Besides which, it's probably only me who's reading too much into this. He's probably just calmly resting, not giving this a second thought. With a normal heart rate.

It occurs to me that I know nothing about that part of his life. He's not married, judging by the lack of a ring, but did he have a partner once? Before everything went to hell here? Is he still hoping that she, or he, will have waited? Does he have kids? There's no subtle way for me to ask, either.

"Um," I begin, feeling uncharacteristically disjointed. "If it turns out that only a few years have passed, do you have a life to go back to?"

He turns to me, raising his eyebrows in surprise at my line of questioning. "Not especially. I spent far too much time here. Ironic, huh? What about you?"

"My best friend will be wondering where I am," I say. "And Jeff."

"Your cat?"

"Well remembered. And...I don't know, maybe my dad. I hope so anyway, because..." I trail off and give a nonchalant shrug. It's all bravado. "As far as he knows, Mom and I came here and disappeared." Forcing myself on a different track, I add, "I hope Mel hasn't ditched me for some better friend."

"Mel?" he repeats, a twitch of a smile on his mouth.

Even though he's laughing at me, it's still nice to see it. "I know, I know. Chell and Mel. We've heard it all before. The kids in high school made up stupid little songs about us. They'd sing them whilst following us around. It was incredibly annoying!"

He grins, then sobers again. "No...no boyfriend?"

His voice is quiet, and I wonder if I imagined the stumble at the start of the question.

"No. Just me and Jeff. There was this one guy I was seeing that I thought...well, I was wrong. He was a real jerk in the end. Said I spent too much time at the library where I worked. He didn't understand the concept of being dedicated to your job. He left me for some pretty young thing he met at a party." I exhale, using it as a kind of verbal ellipsis. "So, I decided to become a crazy cat lady instead. I'm still working on that."

"How's it going?" Doug asks, somehow managing to keep his tone deadly serious.

"It's going well. I plan to make progress one cat at a time. Since I only have one, and I'm not even sure about that any more, I still have a way to go."

He nods, then chuckles, looking thoughtfully at the floor.

"What about you?" I say.

"I don't have any current plans to become a crazy cat lady."

I laugh, and he adds, "Even though I have the crazy part covered."

"You're not crazy. You just experience the world differently than other people, that's all." I know I'm oversimplifying it, but it is the basic truth.

He says nothing for a while, processing my words. Then he asks, "What about me?"

"Hm? Oh, I meant what about you, as in partner."

I'm glad he's not looking my way, as I can feel my cheeks warm. I feel faintly embarrassed.

"Ah." He's quiet for a few moments, then says, "No. There's no one."

For some reason, and I'm beginning to suspect I know why, my heart gives a tiny leap of hope at his words. At the same time, I feel sympathy at his melancholy tone. The two sides of me fight it out, eventually finding a way to co-exist.

In a soft, steady voice he goes on. "My condition didn't really develop until I was eighteen. Before that I was a normal, if a little quiet, teenager. I hung out with my friends, tried alcohol and cigarettes, met a lot of pretty girls that I liked. One or two of them even liked me back. But then everything started to go downhill. After I was diagnosed, it changed. _I _changed. I was fighting with myself all the time, I didn't socialise any more. It took years for me to settle down again. I became wary of people, and how they would react to me. The word schizophrenic has such a stigma. It's hard to get away from."

I'm surprised that he's opening up about this, but I'm glad too, glad that he trusts me so much.

"There are more reasonable, open-minded people out there than I'm making out," he admits. "It's just that you tend to remember the negative experiences."

"My mom never treated you like that, though," I say.

"No, she didn't."

"In fact, I remember her telling me about your first day at Aperture. She told me all about you, but the fact that you have schizophrenia never even came up until several weeks after that. And I can't even remember why it was mentioned. It wasn't a big deal, that's the point I'm clumsily making here."

"I had a lot of time for Mary," he tells me. "She took me under her wing when I first started, and never treated me differently from anyone else. The others, although most of them meant well, would hear the term schizophrenia and let whatever overblown rumours they'd heard cloud their judgement of me. Most of them gave me a wide berth, probably without even realising they were doing it."

I shake my head. He's being far more diplomatic about his co-workers than I would be.

"Mary would just tut disapprovingly behind their backs, push a mug of coffee into my hands, and distract me with stories. Sometimes they were about your dad, but most often they were about you. I would get to hear about things you'd said that were amusing, about your job at the library and your annoyance with the customers who wouldn't stop talking there, about your interest in the projects we were working on." He smiles to himself, reminiscing. "All sorts of anecdotes, always accompanied by the photo frame she kept on her desk."

"Oh no," I blurt out, mildly horrified. "You don't mean that awful one of me when I was six where I have that stupid grin?"

"That's the one! And the other side of it had you blowing out the candles on your twenty-first birthday cake."

"Oh God," I moan.

"She was proud of you," he says.

And just like that, with those five little words, this becomes a dangerous conversation to have, and I feel the weight of my loss pressing down on me. My throat tightens, and I swallow a lump in it, staring fixedly at the blank wall.

"I know," I choke out. "I think in some ways she was proud of you too."

"Thank you. She would say things sometimes, and I'd swear she was trying to set me..." he trails off. "Uh..well, it doesn't matter."

"What?" I press, turning towards him.

He doesn't look at me.

"Did she try and set you up with some woman?" I ask, amused.

"Um...I think so. Sort of, yes."

His choice of words and the way he's resolutely watching the floor create a whisper of suspicion in my mind. Was Mom working on setting us up? It seems like the kind of thing she'd do, even though I'd told her not to before. She just couldn't help herself.

Despite my earlier decision to scrutinise my own feelings and determine his, I reassuringly squeeze his hand. 'It's just friendly,' I tell myself. 'That's all.'

For the first time since I began all this self examination, he turns and meets my gaze. A ripple of hyper-awareness shoots through me. His expression is carefully guarded, and I wonder what he reads in mine. Mel used to say that once you start noticing your attraction to someone, you can't stop noticing, and that's where distractions occur. I only hope she was wrong. I can't afford to be distrac...Oh God, I just used the word attraction, didn't I? I did. I'm heading down this path whether I'm ready or not. The logical side of me tells me to take it slow. The impulsive side of me is already running.

"I'm sorry," I say, finding myself with no inspiration for which words to use.

"For what?"

"Mom. She... she just used to do that sort of thing. Arranging everyone else's lives for them. It was annoying, but she always meant it well. We couldn't stay irritated with her for long."

"I know. I didn't mind."

I wonder if he means he didn't mind her setting him up, or if he means he didn't mind her setting him up with _me_. I daren't ask. I want to laugh at myself. I've faced GLaDOS with barely a tremble, yet I'm too scared to ask him to clarify a simple statement. Sometimes, I really am pathetic.

"Is it safe to sleep here, do you think?" I ask to break up the silence.

"I don't see why not. We shouldn't stay too long, though. Wheatley's up there on his own."

"Good point. I hope he's okay." And I really do. Some traitorous part of me with a short memory is still fond of him. "I guess we should carry on, then."

"Rest if you want to," Doug says considerately. "I'll wake you. I probably won't sleep just yet."

"Are you sure?"

He nods. He's fished the pencil from his pocket and is idly twirling it between the fingers of his right hand. Clearly, he has things he needs to draw.

"Okay then. Thanks."

With some regret, I loosen my fingers from his and walk a little way away, making sure I'm not near the blank wall that will probably become his canvas. Out of the corner of my eye I see him flex the hand I've just let go of, and I can't help but wonder what's going through his head.

Unstrapping my long fall boots, I add, "Don't let me sleep too long."

He nods again, a ghost of a smile visible on his face. "I won't."

"And you should get some rest too."

"Anything else?"

"No, I'm done."

"Good. Be quiet and get some sleep," he says, not unkindly.

I send him a grin, which he returns, albeit a little half-heartedly, and settle down, hoping that my mind will let me rest.

* * *

**A/N: **This chapter got a little more fluffy than I originally intended. Ah well. I apologise for the amount of dialogue, but it seems that now she can talk, Chell doesn't want to shut up.


	14. Out Of The Shadows

**A/N: **Aaaand she's waking up again. It's tradition now!

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen - Out of the Shadows.**

My limbs are heavy and awkward, dragged down by exhaustion, yet I force myself to keep running. She's behind me, always behind me, always taunting. The path I'm on is narrow, flanked by acid pits on either side. She keeps trying to knock me into them, placing turrets and rockets in my way, sending thermal discouragement beams across the tiles so I have to jump and twist to avoid them. Then I run out of path, and she laughs, a cold, strangely gentle laugh. I turn, and she's right there. She lurches forwards, and I tumble off, falling into nothingness. I will fall forever. And I can still hear her laughing.

I wake with a strangled gasp, sitting up clumsily. My body is damp with cold sweat and seized by an uncontrollable tremble, my heartbeat and breathing too fast. I rest my elbows on my knees, running my hands through my hair. I stare at my feet, struggling to get back in control.

When I look up, Doug is watching me, leaning back against the wall that he's once again covered with sketches. His eyes are unusually bright. While I don't find it disturbing exactly, it is a little unsettling. He's obviously been fighting his demons, exorcising the voices from his head by scribbling their words on the wall.

"Nightmare?" he says.

I nod, letting out a shaky breath.

"I wish I could tell you it gets easier."

I send him a feeble smile. "I appreciate your honesty."

He meets my gaze, acknowledging my comment. Then he glances at the cube, and I wonder if it's talking again.

"How long was I sleeping?"

"Just over an hour, I'd guess." He shrugs. "It's hard to tell."

"I know."

He stands up and crosses to the cube, crouching down to speak to it in a low voice. I reach for my long fall boots, strap them in place, and get to my feet. I can't make much sense of what he's scrawled on the wall, but I notice there's another portrait of me. I look like I'm running, and he's written 'strength' next to it. It feels like an invasion of privacy to study these murals while he's here, and I turn respectfully away.

He's turning away himself, and I realise that he was watching me examine his drawings. His shoulders slump, and I wonder if he's misinterpreting my reaction.

"I didn't want to…" I begin, and he looks back around, raising one eyebrow in question. "These," I gesture to the wall, "these are private. It…feels wrong. They're yours."

"I…" He pauses, swallows, and continues. "I actually don't mind. You know everything about me." In a voice so quiet I can barely make out his words, he adds, "Well, almost everything."

"Even still, it makes you uncomfortable…"

"It's fine. It means you know me. You're the first person…in a long time. And…now the only one." He smiles and pats the cube. "You know you don't count," he says to it fondly.

I glance back at the drawings, noting the way I look in them, because now I go back to it, I see I'm there more than once. I look strong, determined, somehow graceful…almost…beautiful. Although I'm very hesitant to use that word.

"Is this really how you see me?" I ask, my tone soft in a kind of awed wonder.

I can't meet his eyes while I ask, and perhaps this makes it easier for him to answer, which he does straight away with a simple, "Yes."

I'm rendered speechless, scrambling madly for something to say. But then there comes a loud clang from the direction of the test chambers. We don't even exchange a glance. In a trice, we're both running for the door, Doug swinging the cube onto his back as he goes. Beyond the office is a maze of corridors. I hesitate, unsure which way to go. Doug overtakes me, grabbing my hand and pulling me down the left hand route. He seems confident about where he's going, so I let him lead me.

We jog on in silence, winding our way through the garbage-strewn paths. It looks like this was an area that was more heavily populated when GLaDOS pumped out the neurotoxin. There's much more evidence of human activity here than I've seen anywhere else. More scattered paperwork, tea and coffee stains on the floor lying by abandoned, cracked mugs, a dropped packet of Kleenex, a broken cigarette lighter. I hope that some of them got out via the escape route we're looking for.

"I don't know exactly where you are," comes GLaDOS's voice suddenly, making us both skid to a stop. "But I know you're there. Honestly now, after everything I've done for you, feeding you, shipping you around where you wanted to go, letting the moron leave. And you decide to break yet more Aperture Science property and go exploring through areas you're not authorised to be in. Do you have any idea just how rude that is?"

I glance at Doug. His expression of shock and concern looks exactly how I imagine my own to look.

"Can she hear us?" I mouth.

He nods. I feel as if someone has trickled cold water down my back. I hate the thought of her listening to everything we say, stalking us shamelessly. I know we've been lucky so far. This is the first 'backstage' area that I've come across where she can speak to me. But I was hoping to never hear her voice again.

"I'm a generous person," she goes on, "so I'm happy to let you wander around back there. Science will still be waiting when you come back. And don't trouble yourself with finding your way here. I've got two party escort bots already headed to your location. You're welcome."

We continue on while she speaks, walking slowly to minimise sound, yet aware that if the party escort bots are on their way we need to pick up the pace. Eventually, we pass through a door into another maintenance area, and Doug examines the ceiling thoroughly before letting out a sigh.

"I think we're okay here," he says at length.

"Where are we?"

"Almost there."

Foolishly, I feel hope rise at his words. I don't want to feel it. It's been there and been trampled on too many times now. But it materialises anyway, despite my past experiences.

"Are you all right?" he asks earnestly.

I meet his gaze, noticing the genuine concern in his eyes.

"I'm fine," I reply. "It's just...I didn't want to get my hopes up, not after everything that's happened. But I can't seem to help it. I just...well, you know, you're probably going through the same thought process."

He nods. "It's...kind of surreal, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

I glance around. We're in a kind of warehouse, filled with hundreds of storage containers. Some of them have been opened and emptied, others are still shut up.

"I used to come here looking for provisions," Doug says as we walk through. "One of these crates kept me supplied with beans for a year!"

"You must be sick of the sight of beans."

"They were a necessary evil."

We carry on, and then something occurs to me.

"If you came here looking for supplies," I say, turning to regard him, "why didn't you just take the service elevator out of here?"

He keeps looking ahead, hesitating before he answers. "Well, firstly, I couldn't get to it. There's a large mechanised door we need to pass through and it needs two switches thrown simultaneously to open it."

"You're smart, though, you could have figured a way around that if you'd tried."

"Heh, don't be so sure."

"You said firstly," I point out. "What was the other reason?"

He sends a brief glance my way. "I...I couldn't, in good conscience, leave you behind."

I let out a sigh. "Doug. You...you shouldn't have done that! You could have escaped years ago!"

He stops walking and faces me, his demeanour surprisingly calm. "I was the one who put you in stasis. I felt partly responsible for you being here. I couldn't just leave. And besides...the way you talked to me...you seemed like someone who could be a friend. Well, I _did _think of you as a friend, even though I know it was mostly in my head."

"I thought of you as a friend too."

He smiles distractedly. "That's nice to know. But my point is, I... I'm a coward, I know that, but..." He trails off, shrugging. "I could never leave friends behind. Not when there's a chance..."

"There's a difference between being scared and being cowardly," I tell him, touched by his low opinion of himself. "Being cowardly means giving up, and you don't. You never have."

"I guess I was taking a leaf out of your book."

I shake my head. "No, it's not just that. Maybe I...inspired you, if that's the right word. But you couldn't have done it without determination. That's all you. It has nothing to do with me."

"You do inspire me," he murmurs, almost to himself.

I note the present tense.

"In your own way, you're just as tenacious as I am," I say warmly.

"Come on, now."

"I mean it. You don't give yourself nearly enough credit."

He doesn't seem convinced, staring resolutely out into the depths of the warehouse. I step forward, raising my hand to his cheek, turning his face to meet my eyes. He looks a little shocked, and I don't blame him. I've slightly shocked myself.

"Doug," I begin sincerely. "You need to stop beating yourself up about things you had no control over. I know it'll be easier once we're out of here, but you can't let this place take everything from you. You're a good man. The best. Never doubt it."

A rapid slideshow of emotions flicker across his face. It's too much for me to keep track of, but I can see that my proximity is affecting him almost as much as it's affecting me. It isn't the same as the way he shied from physical contact before. It's something else. Does he feel what I feel? He's so guarded, it's impossible to tell. But now I'm starting to wonder, and it fills me with another kind of foolish hope.

After a long moment of contemplation, he says, "It's hard not to doubt yourself, when you're dealing with...everything I've had to deal with. But...I'm glad that I have you to remind me."

I move my hand to his shoulder and give it a light squeeze. "I'm glad too."

"You're my strength, Chell," he says seriously. "I would never have made it this far if not for you."

"I believe you would," I reply softly. I'm self-conscious accepting the compliment.

We both lapse into silence. It's awkward, but not excruciatingly so. For once he doesn't shy away from holding my gaze, but as always, he keeps his thoughts to himself. I can read very little in his expression.

"We should keep going," I say at last.

He nods, and we continue walking, winding our way through the labyrinth created by the storage containers. There's a short corridor beyond the warehouse, then we come to the dual switch door that Doug mentioned. We throw the levers, and the door creaks open reluctantly, coming to a groaning stop before it's completely done. We slip through the gap, just managing to get the cube through, and step out into the unknown territory of the space beyond. It's a long, dimly lit corridor, sloping upwards.

"This is it!" whispers Doug excitedly.

We both pause for a moment, staring into the darkness. It was clearly never meant to be seen by anyone Aperture considered to be important. The walls, ceiling and floor are all made of dark concrete, and nearly every surface is damp, occasionally coated with mould. There are small, muted lights mounted on the walls, but only about one in six are actually working.

Still, neither of us moves. I glance up at Doug. He's looking intently ahead, lips pressed tightly together, his jaw tense. One hand is clutching at the sling he uses to carry the cube, as if seeking reassurance.

For once, I know exactly what's going through his head. The moment we start down this path, we'll be walking into the unknown. We have no idea what's happening on the surface. We could be stepping from the frying pan into the fire. For all its faults, Aperture _has _kept us safe from outside dangers. Better the devil you know. I feel it too. Just barely, but enough to make me hesitate.

I'm strong enough to move past it. My stubborn streak won't let me down, not now. But Doug…Doug has suffered so much more, so much longer than I have. I understand why he's afraid.

I slip my hand into his. He turns to me, eyebrows raised in question.

"Together," I say.

He nods, lips curling in a tiny smile. Together, we take a step forward. After that first one, the rest are easy.

We maintain a mutually agreed silence as we go, wary of the emptiness of the corridor. It continues to slope upwards, curving slightly to the right. We're winding our way out in a lazy spiral. I don't know how long we walk before monotony sets in. It's horrendously repetitive, giving the impression that we're not actually getting anywhere at all.

"Did they really make test subjects walk all this way after they were done with them?" I ask in a low voice, desperate to break the tedium.

"I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me. Back then most of the scientists saw the test subjects as little more than pieces of testing equipment. Some of my older co-workers felt that way too. They felt more concern for the gear they created than for the humans getting hurt by it." He throws a look over his shoulder at the cube. "Good point," he says to it.

"What?"

"Didn't you notice how the elevators are just bigger transportation devices to get things sent through the tubes?"

My mouth falls open slightly. I never _had_ noticed that. "Along with the rest of the testing apparatus," I say.

"Exactly."

"My God. I don't know why I'm always surprised to hear about new lows this place sinks to, but somehow I am. I guess I always hope there's a limit."

"We used to get played a motivational message from Mr. Johnson every morning," Doug recalls, "where he'd shout 'Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon'."

"Oh please."

"I know."

We turn a sharper bend, and I feel something against my skin, soft and almost forgotten.

"Do you feel that?" I ask, my voice a whisper. "It's…a breeze. Air. Real air!"

Doug doesn't speak, closing his eyes as he notices it too. When he opens them again, he turns to me, his face lit up with hope. I can feel his edgy tremble through our linked hands. He's probably resisting the urge to run the rest of the way. I want to give in to it too. Freedom is so close, it's almost torture to walk. But we have no idea if any security measures have been installed in this corridor, and it would be beyond stupid to yield to recklessness now.

After a few more paces we discover that our caution was a shrewd course of action. Doug tugs my hand, stopping my progress.

"Pressure pads," he says.

I glance down at the floor, noticing the small, slightly raised tiles scattered along the route.

"I really don't want to find out what they're for," I comment.

"No," he agrees.

I shoot him a grateful smile. "Thanks."

He nods, and we continue on, forced to drop hands so we can focus on not stepping on the pads. We turn another bend, and Doug halts abruptly, inhaling sharply.

"What is it?" I ask, immediately on alert.

"There's something up ahead. I think. Can you see it too? Is it real?"

I glance ahead, spotting the dark shape slumped against the wall. It looks like some kind of animal, and judging by the smell, it's been dead for a while.

"I see it."

We approach warily, and Doug kneels down to examine it.

"It's a deer, I think. Or was." He grimaces.

"How did it get here?"

"It must have fallen down the elevator shaft. We must be close."

A sound echoes up to us, resonating from the direction we've come from. It's a kind of mechanical clanging, like footsteps.

"Party escort bots," Doug says grimly.

"She knows we're here," I add.

"We need to move."

He stands up, accidentally knocking the deer as he does so. Its head droops forward, depressing one of the pressure pads. Before either of us can react, a panel in the wall slides up, and it becomes clear what happened to the deer. A thin line of ruby light crosses the corridor, dancing across Doug's lab coat.

"There you are," pipes up a sickeningly familiar, deceptively sweet voice.

With no time to form coherent thought, I simply react, lurching forward, shoving Doug further down the passageway as the spatter of bullets alerts the party escort bots to our presence.

Pain explodes up my right side, and I hit the ground with a gasp. Doug is back on his feet faster than I would have thought possible, hauling me back on mine and dragging me out of range of the turret. It's a miracle we didn't set off any more.

I sprawl against the wall, trying to breathe regularly. It's hard. Every movement aggravates the shot wound, sending burning pain rippling across my ribs.

"Chell!" Doug is saying frantically. "You need to get back up! We need to leave now!"

I bite my lip, struggling to comply, maintaining a death grip on his arm. My own limbs are quivering. I taste blood where I bite too hard. Doug throws my arm across his shoulders and I can't hold back a cry. We stumble a few steps, and my vision fogs. Against my will, I find myself dropping to my knees. Why can't I get back up? My head is so light.

"Okay, okay, okay," Doug mutters. "Think, Doug!"

"I'm…I'm trying to stand," I gasp.

"I know." There's a pause, then he snaps, "I can't do that, it hurts her! No, there's another way…I don't care, I have to try."

The echoing footsteps are moving quicker now. There's no way of telling how far away they are.

"Chell, Chell, look at me."

I focus on his face. It swims in and out of sight.

"Hang on to me if you can."

He moves my arm across his shoulders again, resting one hand against my back, slipping the other under my knees. With some difficulty he straightens up, taking me with him.

"Don't," I manage to say, whimpering slightly. "Doug, I'm…heavy. Don't…hurt yourself."

"You're not heavy at all," he tells me gallantly, but I can hear the strain in his voice. His malnourished frame shouldn't have to carry a relatively healthy person like me. Amongst the haze of pain, I feel incredibly guilty.

Taking care to avoid the pressure pads, he carries on, his steps slow but determined. Pausing to take a quick look back, he murmurs, "Oh God, they're nearly here."

"Leave me," I say, knowing that he won't listen, but compelled to say it anyway. "I don't want you to die…for my sake."

"Likewise, you stupid, tenacious woman." His voice is angry, but laced with concern and undeniable affection.

Adrenaline kicks in, and he breaks into a clumsy run. The jolts send waves of agony through me, and I fight hard not to cry out. The mechanised footsteps are growing ever closer. I'm beyond panic now. The pain has leeched it out of me.

"Nearly there!" he yells.

One final bout of jolting, and we cross some kind of threshold. Doug spins, facing the wall to the left. I see them now. Two sinister pink optics materialising out of the dark.

"Hit the switch! Quickly!"

Gathering my wits about me, I reach for the lever he means and bring it down. The elevator begins to move upwards, and Doug leans back, resting on the cube. He's breathing hard, his limbs shaking. He slides uncomfortably down the wall until he's sitting against it, still supporting me as I lie in a bloody heap in his lap.

"You…still with me?" he pants.

"Always," I mutter, pressing my hand to my wound. In my pain-induced daze I'd forgotten to put pressure on it.

I rest my forehead on his shoulder, refusing to give in and lose consciousness. We're still breathing. We're still alive. For now, anyway.

"If I can't find a medic," I say seriously, "don't…drag me around with you…I'll just slow you down."

"Don't talk like that."

"I mean it. Doug…I…I care about you…too much to keep you from…living."

I feel him rest his cheek on the top of my head. "You saved my life. I'm not going to let you die."

"If I…have a bullet in me…you might not have a choice."

"May I take a look?"

"Sure." I have nothing to lose.

He eases me onto the floor and unzips my jumpsuit, parting the fabric to try and see past the blood. With some difficulty, I pull my arms out of it, tugging it down so he can use the sleeves to wipe the worst away. Gently, he lifts my vest top out of the way.

"There's an exit wound," he says at length. "The bullet went straight through you."

"That's good, right?"

"I think so. It clipped your side. In inch further, and you would probably be dead. Or at least, we'd have an even more serious problem."

I tug at the sleeves of my jumpsuit, trying to rip them off. Doug leans forward to help, and together we manage to do it. The cheap fabric tears with a satisfying splitting sound. Doug ties them together into a makeshift bandage, and wraps it around my waist. It's not ideal, but it'll do. Biting my lip against the pain, I push myself up into a sitting position. Doug leans back against the cube, and pulls me with him, supporting and comforting. I don't know how he knows that I need it, but I'm glad he does. I've been forcing myself to be strong for so long, I probably deserve this moment of weakness.

We sit in silence, watching the dull concrete of the wall pass us. Although I know that GLaDOS can't possibly reach us here, I'm still uneasy. This elevator is past its best, and if it fails we won't just fall back to where we were, we'll fall back into old Aperture.

A whirring noise makes us both look upwards. A hatch in the ceiling is sliding back, filling the elevator with the fiery glow of the setting sun. We both blink stupidly, squinting into the light. Doug scrambles to his feet, bending down to scoop me up again, ignoring my protests.

"Remind me," he says casually, "who did you say would be carrying who?"

I snort, then grimace, holding my wound. "Don't make me laugh!"

He smiles, although there's a touch of guilt in it. "Sorry."

We run out of wall, and the elevator keeps going, taking us up to ground level. Doug has the presence of mind to get off it immediately, taking a few stumbling steps through the wheat. Behind us, the elevator vanishes into the darkness, and the hatch closes, blending into the dirt.

We stay put, staring, feeling the breeze on our skin, the temperate warmth of the sun as it disappears beyond the horizon. I glance up at Doug. His face is awash with the gentle orange glow, hiding his pale complexion and lighting the shadows under his eyes. I've never seen him smile quite the way he's smiling now. His eyes are bright with tears.

Doug is not a man you would look at and immediately think 'handsome'. That square-jawed, tanned, Hollywood flawlessness is not him. He'd never be anything so dull. He has charm, a kind of shy charisma that is all his own. His mismatched eyes have a strange sort of beauty to them. His natural expression is one of intelligent seriousness, defined by the concerned crease between his eyebrows that almost seems permanent. But when he smiles, all that worry falls away. His caring side, the deeply-rooted kindness that is always present in him, comes to the surface and is made visible. It's these moments, like this one, his smile illuminated by that wonderful glow of real sunlight, that make me even more aware of the deeply-rooted ache between my ribs, that has nothing to do with a shot wound, and I realise just how far I've already fallen.

I lean my head against his shoulder once more, all my pain, sorrow, hope and exhaustion bearing down on me in a single rush of relief. We're out. I can finally afford to feel everything I've been repressing. It's a little overwhelming, and I'm glad I have him to cling to.

In a surprising move, he presses his lips to my forehead. Despite everything, it sends a small shiver through me. His beard scrapes my skin, but I don't mind it.

"We made it," he murmurs, his breath stirring my hair.

I close my eyes. I don't need to see the world right now. I can feel the sun and hear the wind rustling the wheat that surrounds us, so I know it's still there.

"Chell?"

"I'm still with you," I reassure him, not moving. "I'm just so tired."

"Stay awake just a little longer. We need to find someplace safe."

"We're free," I say. "Everything's going to be fine."

"I should be the one comforting you, not the other way round!"

"This works for me."

"Say it again, then. The important part."

I open my eyes enough to return the smile he's giving me.

"We're free."

* * *

**A/N: **This is the final chapter, but there will be an epilogue to tie up a few loose ends.

If anyone's interested, I painted a moment from this chapter. The link is at the top of my profile page. Do check it out if you're so inclined :)


	15. Epilogue - Doug

**A/N: **This epilogue contains fluff. Just warning you now. Those of you who don't ship Chell and Doug, feel free to skip the epilogue. It's not essential, just a tag-on, and a chance to hear from Doug for a change.

To my guest reviewer: Thanks very much! I hope this answers your questions :)

* * *

**Epilogue – Doug. **

Normality. Normalcy. Normal. These words don't even have any meaning anymore. Whatever it was they related to before, it's a long-distant memory now, diluted out of existence like a raindrop in the ocean. I…we…have had to create a new brand of normal. Since Aperture. Since the invasion that we had no knowledge of or part in turned the world we knew into a very different place.

I know I'm free. I never forget it. My conscious mind, my unconscious mind, every inch of me is aware of that fact. Yet, my dreams still take me back there. Almost every night, I relive those twelve years. Twelve years of living in fear, guilt, self-loathing, scrawling nonsense on the walls when it all got too much, screaming at nothing, hearing the gibberish come out of my own mouth, not knowing what any of it meant. Anything to drown out the voices. Either _Hers_, or the ones of my own making.

I heard so many. All of them had something derogatory to say. Except one. The one coming from the cube. It was my only ally. Now I have Chell, and, to a lesser extent, Wheatley, but I'll always need it. It was there for me when nobody else could be. But even still, there's only one phrase I remember shouting, only one that I consciously managed to spit out: _Help me. Please help me, Chell. _

Desperate words. Desperate times. Times when I was so weak, so far gone drowning in my own troubles that all I could do was cry for help from the one woman who wouldn't even be there if it wasn't for me. If I hadn't put her in stasis… If I'd told her to run, like I wanted to…

She's forgiven me. She says I saved her life. More than once. Probably my finest moments. But I can't help the guilt, knowing that I'm the reason she had to face _Her_.

For the past twelve years, I've had no world but Aperture. My life before, although different, was still dominated by that place. Then Bring Your Daughter To Work Day happened, and my life changed forever, altered by two very different things. First, I met Chell. Second, the course of my existence was changed for me by the simple action of pressing a switch. Henry's action, to be exact. My late superior, killed by his own project. GLaDOS. A project I helped shape, until I realised…well, it doesn't matter. What's done is done.

Meeting Chell was just something that happened incidentally. I'd known she was going to be there, but I didn't plan on intruding on her time. Mary talked about her so much, I almost felt as if I knew her before I saw her. When I observed her frowning over her test subject consent form, discussing it with her mom, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmingly guilty. She had no idea what kind of hell she was walking into. In my defence, Mary and I didn't know either, but unlike Chell, we could see the way things were heading.

When I finally spoke with her in person, plucking up the courage to say hello, she was everything I'd been expecting, and yet somehow still surprising. I've never been good with strangers, or large groups of people. My condition makes it hard for me to trust. But I trusted her. Right from the start. And I still don't really know why. Perhaps it was because I'd known she would be the one, even before I knew what that meant.

I tried to warn her about the future. I knew the final activation of GLaDOS was due to happen later that day, and I dreaded something terrible happening. Even if it was just the paranoia playing up again, I knew that one day the unlawful experiments the A.I. department had carried out would be made public, and I couldn't bear for that to taint Chell's opinion of her mom. I knew that that would kill Mary, and I couldn't let that happen, not after everything she had done for me.

We were horrified when we found out what they'd done, what we'd unknowingly been a party to. People had been disappearing from all over the facility, and we'd assumed they'd quit or been fired. Staff turnover was high anyway. Caroline coped with her increasing stress levels by dealing with incompetence in others. And then she too vanished, and we began to smell a rat. We'd all heard that message of Mr. Johnson's about uploading her consciousness into a computer, but I'd never taken it seriously. Even though I knew that GLaDOS was exactly what Mr. Johnson had wanted to build, I never thought they'd actually take Caroline's mind. She hadn't consented, and in a moment of spectacular naivety, I'd thought that would be enough to save her.

Instinct and paranoia. One can save your life, the other, ruin it. And sometimes, those edges get blurred. In the end, it was the paranoia that saved me. They laughed at me when I started carrying a gas mask in the pocket of my lab coat after the neurotoxin generator was installed. I was in a corridor alone when GLaDOS began her rampage. I hadn't wanted to watch them switch her on, the A.I. that spoke with Caroline's distorted voice, but displayed none of her humanity.

All it took was thirteen minutes. Thirteen minutes for me to become the only one left. Most of them died. Those that survived were forced to become test subjects. Pretty soon, they were dead too. GLaDOS initiated a total lockdown and seized as much control as she could. When she became aware of my presence, she made taunting me a daily occurrence. I learned to survive by choosing the right places to go, avoiding her cameras as much as possible.

I spent twelve years alone in that place, constantly on the run in fear of discovery, while Chell slept in a stasis pod, unreachable. I waited for GLaDOS to wake her up, then I waited for her to end it all: shut the A.I. down. Which she did. Of course she did. She's amazingly proficient like that.

I was too much of a coward to take GLaDOS on alone. I knew it would take someone remarkable. Someone with the right mentality. Someone tenacious. And it had to be her.

I am capable of bravery, but it's usually born out of desperation. And if the voices swamp my head, I'm of no use to anyone. I ran out of medication a long, long time ago. I've learned to live that way now, but it took a while to figure out how. Perhaps, in my own way, I can be just as stubborn as her. I don't want to let my condition rule my life. I refuse.

Chell and I came so close to escaping when she brought GLaDOS down, but circumstances pulled us both back. She had been put in long-term stasis, and I was injured heading to save her. I managed to carry on. I…I saved her life. Then I found my way into my own stasis pod, convinced I would never wake again.

Five months ago I was woken up. Chell was there, and she'd been through hell. She hadn't aged like I had, being in stasis for those first twelve years, but she wasn't the same woman I'd known. She was tougher, wounded deeper than the physical injuries she didn't seem to notice she had, her eyes were colder. Still, I was overwhelmed to see her alive and in front of me after so long. She seemed pleased to see me too, even though I felt like a mere shell of my former self. And frankly, there wasn't much there to begin with.

Chell freed the workers in cryogenic storage, and managed to get them to the surface. After some complications with GLaDOS, we were able to follow. Chell saved me, pushing me out of range of a turret, taking the hit herself. I had to carry her out, but we both made it. We're here, and we're alive.

Mary would be pleased to hear that it turned out this way. I couldn't fix what's happened, but I could still pull Chell out of that hellhole. Even if I didn't care for Chell for her own sake, I would have done it for Mary. She was a good friend, the closest thing I had to a mother since my own passed away. I was still grieving when I started at Aperture, and Mary helped me heal. She even used to drop hints when she was telling anecdotes about Chell, inevitably ending the conversation with the information that Chell was only three years younger than me, followed by a wink and a smile. I never took her suggestion seriously, though. Chell was lovely and full of life, not meant for someone who lived in the dark. Especially now that that three year age gap has become fifteen. It's a depressing thought. I don't like to dwell on quite how depressing.

Five months ago we staggered out of Aperture with nothing but our lives to rebuild. And that's how I ended up here. Living in a single room, sharing a house with Chell, Wheatley, and a family who were already here when we arrived. They kindly gave me the attic room, so I could use the light from the large skylights to paint. If I couldn't paint, or if I couldn't talk to my companion cube, I'd be in a sorry state.

I'm finding I need the cube less now that Chell and the others are in my life. I can leave it in my room without feeling the need to carry it with me. It's the only one I trust though, besides Chell, and for that I'll always need it. But the additional company is nice. I follow Chell's lead on whether to trust Wheatley. She still doesn't, not after what he did to her. But I think she's forgiven him now. If he wants her to trust him, he'll have to prove himself somehow. The family we live with, the Lesters, are kind and friendly, but I think they tolerate my odd habits for Chell's sake. They adore her.

Some of the others we escaped with have settled here too. Some stayed in Michigan, some ventured on further, led by Rick, of course. He'll always be on the move. It's in his nature.

My nature, for the past hour and a half, has been to stare fixedly out of the window, eyeing the darkening sky. I'm sitting on the window seat in the living room, the main communal room in the house. Wheatley is sitting on the floor behind me, playing a board game with the two youngest Lesters, Tim and Annie. Annie, a dark-skinned, dark-eyed ball-of-energy-of-a-girl, is seven years old and seems to be legitimately winning. Wheatley doesn't seem to mind, though. Maybe he doesn't realise.

In the reflection in the window, I see him glance up at me, the light bouncing off the lenses of his glasses.

"She'll be back when she's ready, mate," he says. "She can take care of herself."

"I know," I answer automatically. And I do know that. But that doesn't mean I don't worry until she's home. "I think it's going to rain," I comment.

I don't want her to get sick. We have limited medical resources. Big pharmaceutical is taking its time getting back on its feet. Distribution is poor. Hence why I've had to live with no tablets. We were in suspension for thirty-six years after Chell shut GLaDOS down the first time. The facility fell into ruin, and we had no idea how much time had passed. It could have been ten years, it could have been ten thousand.

When we first got out, we passed through Chell's old home town. While she recovered from her shot wound, she spent every waking hour searching for news of her father, questioning people about what had happened there. She hadn't been expecting to find much, but she discovered someone who knew: her friend Mel's daughter. The woman, Laurel, was thirty-four, and told us she remembered her mother and John, Chell's father, discussing Chell and Mary's disappearance. She explained how she had lost both her parents in the invasion, and how Chell's father had also died at that time.

Although Chell mourned, she seemed peaceful at last. She had closure, and she knew she could move on. That's what she's been trying to do. What all of us have been trying to do. The others think they understand, but it's only the three of us, Chell, Wheatley, and myself, who truly comprehend what it is we're fighting to put behind us. We each of us have our own hellish experiences to get past, courtesy of Aperture Science. I have my twelve years on the run, Chell has her time in the test chambers and Wheatley's betrayal, Wheatley has his guilt and shame. He's a coward, as I am, but I try not to let it get the better of me, whereas he tends to give in.

"If it rains, she'll probably head on back," he says, cutting through my thoughts. He shudders. He hates the rain. Sometimes he seems to forget he's not made of metal anymore.

"I hope so."

"Do you want to go out and look for her?" he asks. "You know, wheel out the old search party? Bring her home safe?"

I turn so he can see my smile. It's one of the most thoughtful things he's ever said. Perhaps Chell's nature is rubbing off on him.

"It's okay. I'll go." I ease myself off the window seat and carefully step over Wheatley's legs.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I wouldn't mind a walk, actually."

"But you said it's going to rain!"

"I'll take a coat." To emphasise my point, I lift my coat off the peg in the hallway and shrug into it.

Wheatley looks like he's going to argue some more, but then five-year-old Tim digs him in the calf with a blunt pencil.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"It's your turn!" Tim says in defence.

"All right, all right!" Wheatley huffs, shaking the dice in his clasped hands. "Gonna lose anyway," he mutters.

"I'll see you later," I say, reaching for the door handle. "Have fun."

Annie says "Bye!" without looking at me, and Tim and Wheatley are too engrossed in the game. I shake my head with a smile, and leave the house.

Outside, the air is cooling, the sun setting behind the bank of dark clouds. It's possible that Chell will return before I do. I don't need to go and look for her, but I get so restless sometimes. A by-product of spending so much time running, I guess. Chell gets it worse than I do. That's why she's taken up jogging. She can't bear to be cooped up. Neither of us tires of seeing the sky.

This town we live in a strange place, a city with no name. Once it had been Vancouver, but there's very little of that place left, and almost nothing recognisable. When we left Laurel, and Chell's home town, we all decided we wanted to get out of Michigan. We travelled onwards until we felt far away enough to stop. We arrived here and simply never left.

The town is half urban city, half rural farmland. It's self-sufficient, and had to adapt to allow for crops and livestock. The weather is much more unpredictable than it used to be, having been interfered with by portal storms. It can affect the quality of the produce, but we must take what we can get. Personally, I'm happy with anything that isn't canned beans.

I turn down the path towards the fields. I know Chell prefers the open space there. I don't let myself be alone like this too often. The constant hum of voices in my head is harder to ignore in the quiet. They try and convince me that my companions are talking about me behind my back, that Wheatley will betray me like he did Chell, that GLaDOS is somehow still watching us, that I should scuttle away and hide like a rat. Things that the logical side of my brain knows aren't true. But logic is sometimes lost in the noise.

The first drop of rain hits my face and I look up. I like the rain. It's cleansing, forgiving. My feet automatically take me beyond the fields to the reservoir, where I can hear the soothing splash of the drops on the surface of the water. As I look across the artificial lake, I spot Chell on the opposite side, sheltering under a tree. I hurry to meet her, and she greets me with a smile.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi."

She eyes me curiously. "What are you doing out here?"

"Looking for you, actually. You've been gone hours, I was getting worried."

"I never go far," she reassures me.

I shrug. "I know."

"I just…I needed to think."

"What about?"

She stares at me for a moment, seemingly searching for words. "I…it doesn't matter. There was something…something I've wondered about for a long time. I wasn't sure about it, and now I am. That's all."

She folds her arms. I think she's being defensive, but then I notice the gooseflesh on her skin. She's come out without a jacket. I begin to tug my coat from my shoulders, but she puts out a hand, halting me.

"Don't. You'll get cold."

"You're already cold," I counter.

"Yes, but I'm tougher than you." She grins infectiously.

"Even tough people get cold," I argue.

Chell nods in reluctant agreement. The tree is a poor shelter, and the rain patters down between the leaves. She has strands of hair stuck to the side of her face.

I'm prepared to ignore her and give her my coat, but she steps forward, her eyes never leaving mine. She slips her arms around my waist, between the coat and the shirt I'm wearing under it. I tense in surprise.

"There," she says. "Problem solved."

Moving past my initial shock, I force myself to relax, and draw the flaps of the coat shut behind her back. It's too big for me, and the two of us easily fit inside it. Chell leans her head on my shoulder, and I rest my cheek on her damp hair. She's only half a head shorter than me without her long fall boots. Can she hear the thud of my heart?

Not for the first time, I wonder if she knows how I feel. I've loved her for so long, I can't even pinpoint the moment it started. It's so ingrained in me, I wouldn't be complete without it. But I can't bring myself to tell her. I lived twelve years without her, I got older, lost my sanity just a little bit more. She deserves so much better.

She moves her head slightly, facing inward towards my chest. I can feel her breath on my neck. All at once I'm aware that if she tilted her face up, just a little…

I daren't move. God knows, I want her to. But I can't bring myself to initiate it. If she chose me, there's no way I'd have the will power to refuse her. It's all I want in this world. _She _is all I want in this world. But she deserves better.

She halts. It's almost like…she's asking permission. The right thing to do would be nothing, but I'm not that strong. I press a light kiss to her forehead, and I hope she understands what I'm saying.

_Whatever you choose, I'll be all right. _

We both wait. Then, slowly, she lifts her chin and meets my gaze. Her beautiful grey eyes, always so steely and determined, are full of warmth, affection, and…something else that I can't quite believe I'm seeing. At the sight of her, I let down my guard, let her see in my face just what she means to me.

Despite my vow to let it be her decision, when she leans in, I meet her halfway. The short distance is closed, and our lips meet. Her kiss tastes of rain, fresh, soothing, and perfect. I bring one hand up to the back of her neck, tightening the other around her waist. She clings to me with equal fortitude. When we part, I rest my forehead against hers, and we share a smile.

"We should have done that sooner," she says softly, and we both laugh.

"No," I say. "That was worth waiting for."

"I suspected how you felt, but I wasn't certain," Chell goes on. "And I had to be sure of myself too. I felt such a strong connection to you when we were at Aperture. You were my only true ally. I needed to know that that wasn't all we had."

"And?"

She smiles again. "And it's not. Even after so many months outside, you're still all I think about."

I brush my fingertips across her cheek, sweeping her hair behind her ear, where it promptly slips back. "Even your hair is stubborn," I mutter.

She pulls a face, but grins. "Yes. Everything about me is stubborn, so don't even think about trying to talk me out of this because you think you're not good enough. Don't pretend that that isn't what's been going through your head. I know you, Doug Rattmann."

I sigh. "Chell," I begin. But she doesn't let me get beyond that.

"I'm not going to listen. I don't care that you got a little older, I don't care that you hear voices. I care about you. I want _you_." She slips a hand out of the coat to cup my cheek, angling my face so I'm meeting her eyes. "I love you."

The emotions she stirs up with her speech make it impossible for me to answer right away. Instead, I pull her closer, kissing her again and again.

"Chell," I murmur when we pause for breath. "You're the one. You've always been the one."

"Is that what you meant?" she asks. "All those times you called me that, is this what you were saying?"

I consider the question. "Perhaps. Subconsciously. I never noticed I was falling in love with you until I was past the point of no return."

"Would you have wanted to return?" she says, a small smile on her lips.

I smile too, holding her close. The warmth between us, coupled with the coolness of the rain, is idyllic.

"Never."

"And…you do feel the same? You…really love me?"

It's the first time I've ever seen her seek reassurance. There's only one answer I can give her, one that I scrawled over and over on a wall that she never found. A clichéd truth, but a truth nonetheless.

"I will love you forever."

And that is the one thing I can promise her. I couldn't free her before. I couldn't help her as I'd wanted. But I can give her this. She smiles, her face damp with rain, alive, and alive because of me. She tucks her head into the crook of my neck, and I feel some of the shadows disperse, an unfamiliar warmth settling over me. When I recognise it, I let out a grateful sigh. I'd convinced myself that I'd never feel it again: contentment. And I know that forever is enough.

The End.

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**A/N: **Well, that's it. It's been fun :) Keep an eye out for more Portal stories from me, since I can't seem to get Chell and Doug out of my head! Big thanks to everyone who's reviewed and favourited :)


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